Iraq: Enduring America Gets The Daily Show Seal of Approval!

Enduring America, 26 February: Just to Repeat: 50,000 US Troops in Iraq….Indefinitely

Jon Stewart,   3 March: "That's right. Everybody's coming home except for several dozens thousands of soldiers."

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mess O'Potamia - The Iraq War Is Over

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Ms Clinton's Wild Ride: Iran is Still Very, Very Dangerous

Latest Post: Clinton/Gates to Israel (and Congress) - Back Off on Iran

More evidence, for me, that the mission of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (pictured) is more than a separation of Iran from the Palestine and Lebanon issues (a running debate amongst us and our readers, and one we'll return to later today). This is shaping up to be a major US diplomatic offensive to "put Iran in a box", whether in advance of another attempt at diplomacy from a position of strength or further pressure on Tehran.

On Wednesday, Clinton used a stopover at the European Union in Brussels to warn of Iran's threat to the Middle East via local groups: ""It is clear Iran intends to interfere in the internal affairs of all these people and try to continue their efforts to fund terrorism -- whether it is Hezbollah or Hamas or other proxies."
She returned to the idea of missile defense devoted primarily, if not solely, to facing down Iran: ""We've made the point to Russia and will again, and I think they may be beginning to really believe it. We have real potential threats, and obviously Iran is the name we put to them as a kind of stand-in for the range of threats we foresee."

Clinton's latest verbal barrage was in part an effort to keep Iran at a distance from US policy on Israel, Palestine, and the Arab world: ""There is a great deal of concern about Iran from the entire region. I heard it over and over and over again in Sharm el Sheikh, in Israel, in Ramallah." En route to Brussels, she reiterated to reporters on her plane that she heard "over and over and over again" from Arab representatives their deep-seated worries about Iranian threats.

At the same time there was clearly a general perspective to curb Iranian power beyond the region, ""We think Iran poses a threat to Europe and Russia. Well, how do we cooperate on that? ... I think this is a very rich area for exploration, and that's what we're going to do."

The Inaugural Enduring America Award for Global Irrelevancy

John Bolton.

Latest Irrelevancy: Bolton informs Sean Hannity of Fox News that Obama is "anti-Reaganesque" on missile defence.

Latest Made-Up "Fact": Iran can nuclear-weaponise "within 6 to 9 months".

Ms Clinton's Wild Ride: Pot, Kettle, Black

From Bloomberg News Service:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (pictured) is trying to undermine the Palestinian Authority, which intends to negotiate a peace agreement with Israel.

At a Tehran conference today, Khamenei said if the Western world wouldn’t put the question of who should rule the Palestinians to a vote, then it would show a lack of commitment to democracy. He called for “resistance” against Israel, aided by Muslims worldwide, to support the Palestinian people, according to Agence France-Presse.

Khamenei’s comments represented “clear interference in the internal affairs of the Palestinian people,” Clinton told reporters traveling with her today to Brussels for NATO and European meetings.

UPDATED: ICC Seeks Arrest of Bashir, Sudan Expels Aid Agencies

Update (5 March): The Sudanese Government responded to the ICC's arrest warrant by expelling international aid agencies, including Oxfam, Medicins Sans Frontieres, and Mercy Corps, from the country.

As expected, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant Wednesday for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. Al-Bashir is is charged with seven counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes in connection with the violence in the Sudanese region of Darfur since 2003. Five counts are for crimes against humanity, including murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture, and rape. The other two counts are for war crimes, direction of attacks against civilians, and pillaging.

The ICC chief prosecutor had filed charges of genocide against al-Bashir. These were not included in the warrant; an ICC spokesman said evidence submitted to date did not support those charges. They be added in an amended version at a later date.

For a useful analysis of the ICC proceedings, see Simon Tisdall in The Guardian earlier this week.