One contradictory aspect of the new strategy is that, in Iraq, most of the insurgent violence directed at the American military has come from Sunni forces, and not from Shiites. But, from the Administration’s perspective, the most profound—and unintended—strategic consequence of the Iraq war is the empowerment of Iran. Its President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made defiant pronouncements about the destruction of Israel and his country’s right to pursue its nuclear program, and last week its supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on state television that “realities in the region show that the arrogant front, headed by the U.S. and its allies, will be the principal loser in the region.”

But read the whole thing; it’s more scary even than that.

Where is our Congress when they are not out running for President?

You got me, especially if the question is: Where is our Congress on Iran when they are not out running for President? Except for Dennis Kucinich, where are our 2008 candidates on Iran? Will we see another IWR, this time for Iran? Probably not, because the first one already gave away the store and Bush doesn’t think he needs an authorization from Congress. It won’t be the politicians, (except for liberated souls like John Kerry or Al Gore, fearless voices like Maxine Waters or Ted Kennedy, and fearsome strategists like Carl Levin), who save us from the next war. It certainly won't be our primary candidates, too busy building $150 million apiece for the war chests they need a year from now.

In the dkos thread, my fellow Wes Clark Democrat Tom Rinaldo says: “I am not waiting for our political leaders to show leadership. I am running now with this opening that the StopIranWar.com campaign is giving us. We can't wait for our leaders any longer... Stopping war with Iran won't wait for the Presidential Primaries. Can't we prevent a war first and politic for candidates after?”

It will be people like Sy Hersh and Wes Clark, who put the country ahead of their careers or political fortunes, and stick, for years, with the most dangerous stories of our era, seeing that the secrets of government move into the public sphere, the warnings are sounded loud and clear, who save us, if saved we can be, from the third war in a series.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters on Hardball:

Chris: Do you believe the President has the Constitutional authority to launch a war against Iran without Congressional approval?

Maxine Waters: Oh absolutely not. As a matter of fact General Clark and some others saw this coming and they have been talking with many of us about directing our attention toward the fact that the President was moving toward Iran and so many of us are saying to the President through letters and through actions: Don’t do it Mr. President! Don’t. We believe that you should be involved with diplomatic efforts with Iran. We cannot afford to sustain this war in Iraq and Afghanistan and go into Iran and then take on Syria. This doesn’t make good sense. We can’t afford to do that.

And it will be people like us.

As the Kos diarist jasmint53, who as they say has "skin" in the war, a son, correctly says: "The Democrats in Congress CANNOT stop this without substantial spine-stiffening support from public opinion, as well as crossover votes from elected Republicans. The forces are in place and the Commander in Chief does not need the authorization of Congress to "respond" to a Gulf of Tonkin type of "incident." By the time he needs to come to Congress for "war" authorization,the Middle East will already be in flames and the oil supply will be interrupted -- with huge repercussions for the world economy and national security. We simply cannot afford to allow Bush to act against the advice of all the experts yet another time."

General Clark will be interviewed by Amy Goodman of Democracy NOW at the Kaufmann Concert Hall of the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan tomorrow night. The topic is “War: Past, Present and Future.” Perhaps it will end up on Democracy NOW Radio. I hope so. We should listen to Wes Clark, read Seymour Hersh, as if our lives depended on it.

General Clark, taking the battle wherever he finds a field will discuss stopIranWar.com tonight with Bill O’Reilly on Fox News. You wonder why they call Clark a hero? From Bill O’Reilly to Amy Goodman, Clark takes on all comers.

What’s in all this for the ‘Netroots?

Tom Rinaldo again:

For all our brave talk about netroots power, this is really put up or shut up time, now before military action against Iran begins. It would have been much easier to keep U.S. forces out of Iraq in the first place than it has been to get them out once they went in. We can't keep playing catch up, we lose before we begin when we do that.

We are the wake up call, we can sound the alarm, and once we have done so I believe the American people will not stand for another war. I hope we are now crossing over the first threshold of inertia. Regarding stopping war with Iran, we are now the first responders. If we don't show up to fight this early and hard we will be protesting against middle east wars for the next decade or more.

I don’t want to mobilize against this war after it has started. I've done that too many times in my life and watched too many people die while we've struggled to end a war that could have been prevented.

We have been given fair warning on this one. We can mobilize now to stop this war or we can mobilize later to protest it: It's one or the other.

And, let's see, to bring you up to the minute: bombing routes; apocalypse; same old same old. What's one more war, more or less?

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