Rubi--responding to the very long posts altogether, given that you were able to stay up later than I was last night and get earlier as well. Main point is that I have a good internet blog buddy living in Shanghai who looks 'postively' at the 'Iraq War spreading democracy' business, he even refers to it as WWIV and has written a brilliant guidebook to Shanghai, as well as a few years ago another important book on Georges Bataille. But...I just like him and his exquisite writing, and is one of the few internet people I would love to meet (my experience hasn't been wonderful with that, having liked only one girl of a number of people I'd talked to on the net, and I never ever try to get sex over the internet, but that could be because in NYC it is simply not difficult to come by for me), but the curious thing is that, while true that is vaguely possible democratization might spread if there's time, on balance it simply doesn't equal the gross stupidity of pretending you were going after your attacker (who was in Iraq only for a day or two, it seems, Mistah Bin Laden finding Mistah Hussein a bit too profligate with his hundreds of irreligious whores, against which 10 or 12 wives living in caves seemed relatively Dale Evans/Roy Rogers/Pat Robertson...). This is what you rightly call 'misguided', and while it is not impossible that good results won't come from out-and-out lies and betrayals non-stop such as Cheney and Bush and Rummy shamelessly indulged in, that is still not my point. And even though I've been a Clinton suppiorter, Obama has definitely been much the best on focussing on the obvious, which has been all through these years death to all logic--he not only voted against the Iraq War, but some 6 months ago did speak about how it might be necessary to become quite aggressive in Waziristan whether or not the then-Musharraf (and this one is even more placating with the tribes) Regime agreed to it. Bush knows all this, but wouldn't do it. The world has changed, not just the U.S., as a result of this supreme insult to intelligence that the Iraq War has been.

Everybody who keeps up with foreign affairs knows of the NIE that strongly warns of the re-sterngthening of the true Al Qaida, not the one that was spawned in Iraq and only pays lip service to brotherhood with Bin Laden's outfit, etc. Now, if this has happened, and the greater likelihood of attacks inspired and masterminded by Al Qaida in Pakistan/Waziristan emerges in the form of results, 'democracy-building' in the Middle East, even if it has positive results after many hundreds of thousands of deaths and otherwise ruined lives--still would come across as a sort of 'Violent Peace Corps', given that is, of course, likely that not addressing and very single-mindedly the matter of the real threat in Pakistan/Waziristan will result in more AQ attacks.

Obviously, I am not disagreeing with you, I think I am just not able under any circumstances to look at the Iraq War as positive, because it just was never a priority. The priority, that being the attackers now comfortably ensconced in Cave Dust and lack of deodorant, shows the U.S. foreign policy at its flimsiest. The CIA more recently has been saying more about the complete lack of a plan.

The rest of the things you say may have a lot of merit, and I see them as going along with the external worldview of other nations. Naturally, in having experienced 9/11 up close, I simply cannot get out of my head how Bin Laden was allowed to escape at Torah Borah, and since then, Bush has had power for many years, and what is the net result of trying to get Osama Bin Laden? well, it's getting Saddam Hussein, and asking the world to accept that as a consolation prize. That Bush will leave office without having caught Bin Laden is the most embarrassing imaginable thing, but given his Christian zeal and his obvious personal stupidity, he won't even think of that. He paid little attention to Katrina such that even McCain had to rail against him in New Orleans recently.

Do agree that McCain as 'Bush Sequel' is unlikely. McCain's history as a man of character does say something. Bush is not a man of character, even though he ran on that platform.

But, while the importance of Israel/Palestine cannot be minimized, that too is not solved by going to countries that are evil and yet have not attacked you (and not even Kuwait for a decade or so).

I would imagine that I won't be convinced of anybody's foreign policy on any country, nor care what the U.S.'s reputation is, until there has been some real engagement and the obviously-needed results from Pakistan. The rest is all very important, but by comparison, beside the point--even if one sees only that all the military engagement in the region is supposed to have become overt because of 9/11. And even John Kerry, a weak candidate, forced Bush in his 'successful debates' (quotes because who cares? Bush really beat him in the debates as well, Kerry just not tough enough to pull it off) to admit that Saddam Hussein had not had anything to do with 9/11, or rather, at least that it was Bin Laden's people who executed this. That rotten-egg combination--saying Iraq was allied with Al Qaeda (it was not AT ALL) and that Iraq definitely had WMD--is something anyone with concentration is not going to forget, no matter how many times McCain tells us that's old hat, and it is also not very impressive that he cannot keep Syria and Iran straight from either his ass or a hole in the ground, in no particular order.