A Foreign Policy of Free-Floating Belligerence

After the debacle in Iraq, any prudent policymaker would go slow on the military option and dust off the file called "diplomacy."

But since no one in the highest reaches of the Administration fits that description, the BushCheneyiacs keep rattling the sabers.

Condoleezza Rice continued with the free-floating belligerence when she testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on October 19.

In her opening statement, she went out of her way to criticize Iran and Syria. They "allow fighters and military assistance to reach insurgents in Iraq," she said. "Syria and Iran must decide whether they wish to side with the cause of war or with the cause of peace."

(Since April 2005, the country that has supplied the most foreign fighters to Iraq is not Syria or Iran, by the way. It is Egypt, according to The New York Times of October 20.)

Rice pointedly refused to rule out military options against Iran and Syria. Nor did she reassure the panel that Bush would ask for Congressional approval first. She said she didn’t want to "circumscribe" his powers as commander in chief.

The BushCheneyiacs believe those powers are essentially unlimited. Her words could hardly be described as surprising.