i'm not TOO horrified that he's right.

[cimorene]

> June 7, 2004
>
> The Dog Days of the War Party
>
> by Patrick J. Buchanan
> Fourteen months ago, after the 3rd Infantry Division and Marines swept  into  Baghdad, Washington was at the feet of the neoconservatives who
had been > plotting > and propagandizing for an invasion for years.
>
> A celebratory breakfast was held at the American Enterprise Institute > think> tank, where William Kristol, Richard Perle and Michael Ledeen
held forth > in a> spirit of joyous anticipation of wars and victories to come. At a dinner > party at> the vice president's mansion, Kenneth ("Cakewalk")
Adelman, Lewis I. > "Scooter"> Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, and Paul Wolfowitz toasted one another > and the> president. As the '60s song went, "Those were the days, my friend, we > thought > they'd never end."
>
> Now, enmeshed in a guerrilla war, Americans are demanding to know who  > told> us we would be welcomed with garlands of flowers. Who said our
troops > would come> home in a year? Who said democracy would flourish across theArab world? > Who> misled us about the weapons of mass destruction? Who lied usinto war?
>
> But the neocons may be facing problems more serious thanentering the> history books alongside the Whiz Kids of the McNamara era who
got it > wrong in> Vietnam and left 58,000 behind. Some War Party leaders may seecareers > cashiered> and reputations ruined.
>
> According to The New York Times, U.S. intelligence officialsclaim that> Ahmad Chalabi informed the top Iranian agent in Baghdad that the > Americans had> broken their top secret code and were reading their messages toTehran. > Chalabi> reportedly told his Iranian contact he got this intel from a
high > American> official who was drunk.
>
> According to writer Sidney Blumenthal, the FBI is now visitingAEI to> interrogate scholars in residence to learn who leaked word wehad broken
> the> Iranian code - to Chalabi, who is emerging as the Alger Hiss ofthe> neoconservatives.
>
> Another question is whether Chalabi was being used all along by Tehran to> goad the United States into invading Iraq, thus opening the door
to a > Shi'ite> regime in Baghdad, which, with Shi'ite Iran, might control the Persian > Gulf and > its oil treasures in perpetuity.
>
> If so, this Iranian coup would rank with Bismarck's doctoring of the Ems > telegram to goad Napoleon III into a war that cost him his throne and
> Alsace-Lorraine, and united Germany behind a Prussian king whomBismarck > would> have crowned Kaiser in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
>
> The White House dumping of Chalabi represents a rout for the neocons, who> had all their chips on this pony. For Chalabi had promised them
that, > once> installed in power, he would recognize Israel and resurrect the old > Mosul-to-Haifa > pipeline.
>
> Another scandal on the back burner that could explode and spill over > before> November is the Justice Department's investigation into the White House
> leak of> the CIA identity of the wife of former Ambassador Joe Wilson.That leak > was a> retaliatory strike on Wilson for an op-ed in The New York Times
that > undermined> Bush's claim in his 2003 State of the Union Address that Iraq was seeking  > uranium> for nuclear weapons in the African nation of Niger.>

> Apparently, Justice is not only seeking to identify the leakers, but > looking> at the possibility that FBI investigators were misled or lied to. > President Bush> has himself hired outside counsel. As ever, it is not theoffense, but > the> cover-up that ensnares them.
>
> Then there is the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. This appears to be working > its> way up the chain of command toward the E-Ring of the Pentagon
and even > the West> Wing of the White House. If orders went out to ignore the Geneva > Convention, and> prisoners who had nothing to do with terrorism were abused ortortured, > or died in> captivity, famous heads could roll.
>
> Later this summer, the 9-11 commission reports. It seems certain to > single> out Wolfowitz and administration neoconservatives along the line
of > argument of> Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies - for an obsession withIraq that > blinded the> White House to the real and present danger of bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
>
> Beyond this, the national press, cable TV and the Internet are still > flush > with stories of how, in a secret Pentagon intel shop, neocons
"cherry- > picked" the> prewar intelligence and "stove-piped" it up to Cheney's office, where it > was > inserted into the addresses of President Bush.

> The Night of the Long Knives has begun. The military and CIA are stabbing > the neocons front, back and center, laying responsibility on them for the
> mess in > Iraq. Meanwhile, the Balkan wars of the American Right have reignited, > with even > the normally quiescent Beltway conservatives scrambling to get clear of > the neocon> encampment before the tomahawking begins.
>
> But a larger matter looms than the cashiering of ideologues and > apparatchiks> whose time has come and gone. If Bush's "world democratic revolution" and > "Pax> Americana" are out, what is in?>

> What is our post-Iraq foreign policy to be? After we come home from Iraq, > how far does retrenchment go? If the neocons are being stuffed
into the > Hefty bags > of history, who moves up next?
>
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