ARTICLE: Defending Iraq War, Defiant Cheney Cites 'Enormous Successes', By Peter Baker, Washington Post, January 25, 2007; Page A01 ARTICLE: Bush Plans New Focus On Afghan Recovery: Extra $7 Billion Would Go to Security, Roads, By Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post, January 25, 2007; Page A01

Cheney's disconnect comes off as scary weird. He shouldn't be allowed in public if he's going to go all brittle like that. He'll end up being a bigger danger to Petraeus than Maliki if he keeps it up. Meanwhile, the $7B announcement on Afghanistan is encouraging. In retrospect, history will wonder aloud why America didn't put in the huge effort on Afghanistan and temporize on Iraq (something I addressed in a column a way back). Now, we're backfilling on both Afghanistan and Iraq and contemplating war on Iran (my weekend column that Scripps will post and distro tomorrow). In defense of Bush (very cynically): no matter how bad Iraq goes, his Big Bang is actually extended further and better by worse outcome than by opposite (Iraq as dream case), because Iraq-dream-case dismissed regionally as American pilot study and not indicative. Plus, in that case we'd probably just be pursuing the same ramp-up on Iran, with the same "brave" effort from Saudis ("you spill blood, we'll make more profit by pumping harder and doing our bit to reduce Iran's revenue"). If that was path, we'd likely have just blundered into unsustainable invasion of Iran (can't handle 20m in Iraq when things go bad, so 70m in Iran... hard to be optimistic). Of course, with this path (Iraq sucks), we're mostly blowing smoke on Iran. But we're more likely to get--however scary--further and faster on conflating conflicts (unless pushed too much to fight Israel's desired war with Iran, because then the global blowback on us overwhelms any localized dynamics we may wish for) in that the Saudis are forced to fish or cut bait on the Sunni Triangle. But here's why I think the Iran-war-sales-job is so real: not just Tel Aviv but also Riyadh pushing the package (both the blood and the treasure). Think Bush won't do it? Rewatch the Cheney interview with Wolf and remember that he's the adult in the room when that gut decision gets made. Scary enough when the president has no cares about legacy. Now we contemplate matching that dynamic to Cheney's own disdain. And under the right conditions? We will see impeachment proceedings. Don't believe? Then you need to check out Biden's long soliloquy yesterday on the Senate's options, cause those gears are turning.