December 8, 2006
The response by the Howard Government to the situation in Iraq, the mid-term Congressional elections and the Baker report is that nothing has changed apart from some minor adjustments to tactics. That was the line being presented throughout Question Time in the House of Representatives all this week to sharp questions being asked by a re-energised ALP. There were few doubts about Iraq, but many self-serving delusions about the Middle East on the Government side.

Leunig
Who do they--Howard and Downer--- think they are kidding with all the bluff and bluster about chaos descending, running up the flag of appeasement, and the Baker Report justifing their position of business as usual etc etc? That report amounted to a repudiation of the President's democracy project in the Middle East? Do they take us citizens to be fools? Do they think we don't read and make judgements? The ground of Howard's moral certainity is a wasteland of death and destruction, not power used for virtuous ends through clean hands. Howard and Downer remain enwrapped in illusions.
The Iraq Study Group's recommendations on Iraq are a substantive change of strategy and an implicit rejection of Bush's foreign policy. The recommendations involve troop withdrawals, negotiations with Iran and Syria, shuttle diplomacy to get a peace process going between Israel and the Palestinians, and no mention democracy for Iraq or any other country in the Middle East.
Of course, Howard and Downer's bluff and bluster hides the fact that they now talk about stability in Iraq. Democracy has been quietly dropped. It is no longer a goal. It has gone the way of WMD. The Howard Government is looking increasingly isolated now that the ambitious project to reshape the Middle East and the whole international order in terms of Pax America has collapsed in the sand of Iraq. Howard remains enwrapped in the dark shadows of Iraq.
What remains unquestioned in Australia is the false neocon notion that the royal road to Jerusalem lay through Baghdad.
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While we're talking about new "diplomatic" ways to deal with Iran and Syria, we need to note Iran's newest proposed "diplomacy" through the use of colors of hate.
We’re told that Iran is now preparing to enlarge the Nazis’ “dress code for Jews,” by ordering Jews to wear a yellow stripe on the front of their clothes while Christians wear a red badge and Zoroastrians display a blue cloth. That is one colorful prelude for a nuclear war that will envelop the world in “gross darkness” (Isa. 60:2).
I suppose some Muslims agree with the Iranian government’s desire to identify and thereby “protect” Muslims from interacting with “infidels,” through a rainbow of colors on their streets. But I’m sure not all Muslims approve, which means the rest of us have yet another way to differentiate between “friendly” Muslims and “hateful” ones — an impossible task that will cause even more personal misery to all involved.
Still, while the United States is trying to eliminate its own “white, black, brown, yellow and red” skin prejudices, Iran is ready to bring us an enlarged and colorful display of superiority, based on religious beliefs. What a preoccupation with color hatreds embrace! But when the prophesied “darkness” envelops the world, because too many people refused to enlarge their own understanding of God, no one will be able to see skin colors or cloth badges, to identify who is inferior! And I suspect that all who survive will be grateful for the sound of any human voices, without thought of anyone’s “color.”