Iraq/Iran: More on Hillary’s Iran vote
Posted: Monday, October 15, 2007 9:16 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Security
On Sunday, the New York Times Helene Cooper analyzed Clinton’s recent Iran vote, and the assessment wasn’t that positive. The vote “asked the Bush administration to declare Iran’s 125,000-member Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization. Such a move -- more hawkish than even most of the Bush administration has been willing to venture so far -- would intensify America’s continuing confrontation with Iran, many foreign policy experts say.”
More: “Think of it as Iran declaring that the United States military is a terrorist organization because it carries out President Bush’s orders. Such a move, say some Iran experts -- including some advisers to the Clinton campaign who declined to publicly criticize their possible boss -- runs the risk of further alienating the Iranian population, because many Iranians are tied to the Revolutionary Guard or its many offshoots and enterprises in some way.”
Can the US declare victory over Al Qaeda in Iraq? The Washington Post reports, "The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq. But as the White House and its military commanders plan the next phase of the war, other officials have cautioned against taking what they see as a premature step that could create strategic and political difficulties for the United States. Such a declaration could fuel criticism that the Iraq conflict has become a civil war in which U.S. combat forces should not be involved. At the same time, the intelligence community, and some in the military itself, worry about underestimating an enemy that has shown great resilience in the past."
