It occurred to me that my posts on the Iran situation may have come across as your standard “blame Bush” diatribe. I’m not a liberal or a Democrat and I don’t reflexively blame Bush for everything (although if my upcoming observing run is clouded out, that might change). But there are two points worth making, both of which fly in the face of the rantings and raving of the Right.

First, politics has to deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it were. The Bush Administration has long had problems with reality. But the situation we had with Iran was that we had 150,000 troops pinned down just west of them, an Iranian leadership practically begging us to bomb them and a situation that could be and was eventually resolved diplomatically. What we did, given the circumstances, was the right thing.

However, my second point is that those circumstances were the product of the man in the Oval Office. Were we not pinned down in Iraq, were Iraq at peace, Iran would not have pulled this stunt. Our problems in Iraq have emboldened our enemies and this was but a sample of what may be coming.

You see, the Right lauded Bush when Libya, in the wake of Iraq, ended its weapons programs. They said that the terrorist nations were scared and, I believed, they were right. But you can’t, on the one hand, give Bush credit when our actions intimidate evil men and then, on the other, not give him blame when our actions embolden the enemy.

Yeah yeah yeah, I know. It’s the Democrats. It’s the media. It’s the wussy American people who have emboldened the enemy. The same wussy American people who supported the war for three years and continue to support the troops despite incompetent leadership. And Bush never takes any blame. Nothing is his fault. Everyone can be blamed for Iraq and foreign policy problems except the one man was has unfettered power in these areas.

Yeah.