You Have No Urgency Either, Bob

I think I’m beginning to smell the real reason why Turd Blossom bailed out (though I have to admit that it occurred to Will Bunch first here – h/t Atrios – and I’ll elaborate in a minute…probably “echo chamber posting” lots of people here, but so be it).

First, I’ll let you know that Sideshow Bob Casey returned from a fact-finding mission in Iraq with Sen. Dick Durbin (as noted here) and proclaimed the following…

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) said yesterday that his first trip to Iraq last week convinced him that the nation's new government has "no sense of urgency" to establish internal political peace or handle its own security.

The visit reinforced his view that it is time to begin a phased withdrawal of U.S. combat troops, Casey told reporters during a Center City news conference. "The American people are running out of patience. This has lasted longer than World War II," he said. Casey could not give a timeline for withdrawal.

Though the recent "surge" of 20,000 additional U.S. troops has helped calm some parts of the country, Casey said there has not been enough progress toward a political pact to ease the sectarian and ethnic violence among Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis. In addition, only 9,000 Iraqi troops are fully trained to take over U.S. patrols, he said.

Casey suggested that the fledgling Iraqi government has become dependent on the American military presence. But "[U.S.] troops can't force a government to be stable, troops can't force an Iraqi police force to put aside sectarian predispositions and enforce the rule of law," he said.

I’m not sure why Casey and Durbin believed that they needed to travel to Iraq to discover something that was already painfully obvious to most of this country, but I know I should commend them for their effort, and I do.

The problem is that, as is so often the case, Bushco is a step ahead of the Democrats in their political strategy. As Kagro X notes here along with a whole bunch of other people, including Robin Wright of the Washington Post…

The United States has decided to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country's 125,000-strong elite military branch, as a "specially designated global terrorist," according to U.S. officials, a move that allows Washington to target the group's business operations and finances.

[...]

The designation of the Revolutionary Guard will be made under Executive Order 13224, which President Bush signed two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to obstruct terrorist funding. It authorizes the United States to identify individuals, businesses, charities and extremist groups engaged in terrorist activities. The Revolutionary Guard would be the first national military branch included on the list, U.S. officials said -- a highly unusual move because it is part of a government, rather than a typical non-state terrorist organization.

This, of course, is a legal trick to include Iran as part of the Authorization to Use Military Force passed in 2002 prior to the Iraq war, giving Bushco thin cover for an attack, as Bunch and others note.

There was a way to try and forestall this though, again noted by Bunch, and that would have been for the Senate to at least debate S.759, the measure introduced by Jim Webb of Virginia, to prohibit the use of congressional funds for a military operation against Iran. However, the Senate Dems, in their eternal stupidity, refused to do so (as noted here – heckuva job, Harry).

Since they have let Webb’s measure lie for now, all we can do now is hope and pray that Bushco doesn’t launch an attack while Congress is in recess (what a sorry state).

It’s nice that Casey now realizes the urgency of drawing down our presence in Iraq, though he arrived at that judgment a bit late (as noted here). But if he really wants to do right by our military, he and every other Senate Dem should do all they can to move along Webb’s bill immediately after their recess ends.

And to me, it’s now crystal clear why Rove departed at this moment: 1) He’s trying to stay at least a step ahead of one or more Congressional subpoenas; 2) The news of his departure deflects attention a bit from the neocon insanity of beating the war drums concerning Iran, and 3) He can claim to be out of the loop in the event that something goes horribly wrong when an attack is launched (and given these idiots running our government, how could that not happen?), thus not impacting his work of organizing and fundraising for Republican candidates in ’08 in any way.