Iran: the new power in the region

* soto:

"Our tough, rejectionist posture towards Iran was further undermined when the new al-Maliki government in Iraq came out in support of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and Iran signaled it was tired of waiting for the Bush Administration to talk with it about Iraq’s future, and decided to work with regional states to forge their own future. Iran also pledged $1 billion in economic assistance to the Shiites and Kurds in Iraq, and to work with Iraq on sealing their border. In short, any window Bush had to influence events on the ground in Iraq has passed, and Iran is the new power in the region, thanks to Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld."

* laura had an article in the LAT (congrats1) on the weekend:

"Amid concern that the U.S. is drifting toward eventual confrontation with Iran, a growing number of influential statesmen, Republican senators and foreign policy experts are stepping up pressure on the Bush administration to consider doing what no U.S. administration has done in 27 years: talk directly with Iran.

In recent congressional hearings, think-tank conferences, op-ed essays and media appearances, Republican heavyweights — including former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) — have publicly urged the administration to leave the current path of escalation and join European allies in direct talks with Tehran."

* jeebus. indonesian earthquake total up to 9000. let's hope it doesn't double, again.

* leopold:

"The Bush administration knew Enron was on a collision course two months before the high-flying energy company collapsed in a wave of accounting scandals that wiped out $60 billion in shareholder value and left thousands of company employees penniless.
It was August 15, 2001, when Enron lobbyist Pat Shortridge met with then-White House Economic Adviser Robert McNally, one day after Jeff Skilling made a stunning announcement that he was stepping down as president of Enron.
Shortridge confided in McNally that Enron was headed for a financial meltdown - one that could very well cripple the country's energy markets - and urged the White House economic adviser to alert President Bush about the company's financial problems so he could help put together a federal bailout, according to thousands of pages of documents about the meeting released by the government's Enron Task Force."