Do a Dance for Daddy

And so it comes to this. Blair offers Bush his view that Syria and Iran should be included in any new thinking about ways out of the Iraqi debacle and Iran decides to think about it....

The Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said: "We will talk to the US government under certain conditions. Should it correct its behaviour, we will talk to them."

The US immediately goes on the defensive:

That comment prompted a sharp response from the White House National Security Council spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, who said: "I don't think this is about a US attitude adjustment.

"The collective attitude of the world is that Iran needs to play a constructive role in the region, not meddle in Iraq and stop its enrichment activities."

You'll notice that Iran has gone from membership of the "Axis of Evil" to a country that "the collective attitude of the world" now demands aid from in order to sort out the quagmire that Iraq has become. How times have changed...

Ahmadinejad is apparently determined that Bush and Blair should jump through a few humiliating hoops before he decides to help them out of their dilemma.

He is anxious that he should not only win, but that he should be seen - very clearly - to have won.

In Syria, the government newspaper Tishrin said in an editorial that Damascus was "stretching its sincere hand and is waiting for the reactions of the others as the ball is in their court".

But it went on: "Is there any positive change in the US stand that could correct mistakes that have accumulated, and whose consequences have harmed the US and tarnished its image worldwide?... Or are they [statements] no more than attempts to throw dust in the eyes and to keep the situation in the region unresolved for the next years?"

That Bush should now find himself dependent on Syrian and Iranian help to get him out of the hole he has dug for himself in the Middle East, is the best example possible of the catastrophic size of his failure here.

This is not a path that he willingly walks. Indeed, these are two of the nations which were supposed to crumble under the domino effect of the democratic change that he was introducing into the region. (Didn't Vietnam teach these buggers anything about the utter uselessness of their "domino theories"?)

Blair attempted to lay the groundwork for the inevitable begging that will have to take place, whilst simultaneously insisting that he will not beg.

"By moving ahead in Israel and Palestine we believe you remove the central issue that they exploit to stop progress," Mr Blair's spokesman said. "Are they [Syria and Iran] going to be part of the positive drive forward or are they not?"

Of course, should they refuse we have multiple options for punishing them at hand. We could...

Oh bugger, we're already ignoring them. I suppose we could threaten to double ignore them. Shit, but we really need them to get out of Iraq...

Oh bugger, it's time to do a dance for daddy.

tag: Bush, Blair, Iran, Syria