Stabilizing the Middle East was our mission?

The news today from the Middle East is alarming. No longer can such news be surprising but it is alarming, nonetheless. Reuters reports:

“Israel pounded Beirut’s southern suburb on Sunday, the fifth successive day of an offensive on Lebanon, with no sign that its attacks on the Hizbollah guerrilla group and civilian installations were near an end. The air strikes, which killed 35 civilians on Saturday, including 15 children, were meant to punish the Lebanese government for failing to disarm Hizbollah and letting it menace Israel's northern border, where measures just short of a state of emergency have been ordered.”

AP reports:

“Gunmen kidnapped the chairman of Iraq's Olympic committee and at least 30 others Saturday in a brazen daylight raid on a sports conference in the heart of Baghdad. Armed clashes erupted elsewhere across the capital. Parliament extended the national state of emergency as at least 27 people -- including two American soldiers -- were killed in sectarian or insurgency-related violence.”

Just think how bad it might be in that absurdly embattled region if President George W. Bush hadn’t been a visionary.

Of course, now we know the Prez was just kidding about all those Iraqi weapons of massive distraction. Still, it was the scholarly strategist Bush, with semi-shrewd but all-mean Dick Cheney at his side, who had the foresight to invent a pretext to invade Iraq out of thin air, so that America could establish permanent bases there, in order to stabilize the region and spread democracy.

So, thank your lucky stars ... uh, oh. Incoming!