BUSH RAN-- IRAN WALKED... WAVING AND SMILING

Bush slinked in and out of Iraq for a quick unannounced photo-op and some handshakes on a heavily guarded American airbase. They never turned off Air Force One's engines... just in case the Iraqi people found out that the author of their misery was in the country. Now that he's murdered Saddam and his two sons, Bush's main nemesis in his world of power politics is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And he's in the midst of a much heralded, high profile visit to the country that it's self-declared "liberator" and "rebuilder" and "protector" is scared to death of.

U.S. policy in Iraq-- i.e., Bush's war and occupation-- accomplished very little of what it set out to accomplish (other than the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and his subsequent brutal quasi-judicial murder)... unless you're Iranian. Bush's Iraq policies accomplished everything Iran has been working towards for decades. A hostile, war-like and implaccable foe dominating it's entire western border has been replaced by a supine, toothless failed state ruled largely by its allies and co-religionists. The single biggest instigator of Bush's Iraq agenda, darling of the clueless Inside-the-Beltway Neocon establishment, Ahmad Chalabi, was-- as the CIA and State Department warned Bush and Cheney (who didn't believe them)-- an Iranian double agent. Cheney and Rumsfeld may think he's swell, and still want to see him running Iraq, but he managed to get the U.S. to spend over a trillion dollars to accomplish most of Iran's goals for Iraq.

Meanwhile Iran and Iraq are celebrating a new chapter in brotherly relations in Baghdad today while Bush skulks around his pig farm in Crawford, Texas muttering darkly about Iranian nukes and terror exportation.

Ahmadinejad is the first Iranian head of state to visit it's closest neighbor since Bush I, Rumsfeld and Cheney plotted with Saddam to attack Iran-- launching a devastating 8 year war-- in 1980. Over a million people were killed. He rejected Bush's accusations that Iran is inciting and arming Iraq's Shia majority to attack American soldiers occupying their country.

"We tell Mr. Bush that accusing others will increase the problems of America in the region and will not solve them," Ahmadinejad said in at a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in the American-guarded Green Zone. "The Americans have to understand the facts of the region. Iraqi people do not like America." (Wait, what happened to the monuments and squares to the glory of Bush we were told they would build in downtown Baghdad?) His goal, upstaging Bush and making him more of a laughing stock, seems to be working.

Unlike Bush, who has traveled to Iraq twice unannounced and on his last visit never left an American base in Anbar province, Ahmadinejad not only announced his trip in advance but also is planning to visit two major Shiite Muslim holy sites, Karbala and Najaf, at the end of a mammoth Shiite pilgrimage that was marred by a suicide bombing.

The out-of-town visits raise security questions in the face of the continuing threat from Sunni Islamist extremists. But the images of Ahmadinejad at sacred sites are certain to impress Iranians, who in two weeks will vote in parliamentary elections at a time when soaring oil prices haven't eased Iran's economic troubles.

...'The Iranians are trying to make it clear to the U.S. and the Arab world that they are a force in the region,'' said Karim Sadjadpour, an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in Washington. "What the Iranians like to say is that the U.S. has hard power in Iraq-- they have tens of thousands of soldiers and artillery-- but Iran has soft power. No matter how many soldiers the U.S. has, they're never going to have the cultural affinity and popular affinity that the Iranians have in Iraq.''

Ahmadinejad got a red-carpet welcome (4 kisses) from Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. "We had very good talks that were friendly and brotherly. ... We have mutual understandings and views in all fields, and both sides plan to improve relations as much as possible,'' Ahmadinejad said in a news conference with Talabani at the Iraqi president's residence, located across the Tigris River from the new U.S. Embassy in the fortified Green Zone.

Aside from the racism and personal attacks the McCain camp is readying to deploy against Obama-- one McCain top aide already quit in revulsion at the game book-- the only possible way for McCain to win a third Bush term is to convince skeptical, angry voters that the occupation of Iraq is working. The mass media has been working-- working overtime to never mention the word "surge" without also mentioning it has been a success. It hasn't been a success except in the most narrow and fleetingly tactic sense imaginable. Strategically it has accomplished nothing at all. Today Rove was on Fox trying to scare people into thinking that if we end the occupation of Iraq, oil prices will shoot up to $200 a barrel. When Bush invaded Iraq, a barrel of oil was $36. Now it's $100. America has entered a cycle that could easily turn into catastrophic inflation thanks to the policies of Bush, Cheney, Rove and McCain. I think we've heard more than enough from these crooks and spinmeisters.