Learning to live with the Ayatollahs

[NNN0LHI]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20061130/cm_uc_crrscx/robert_scheer20061130

How in the world did George W. Bush manage to turn Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the "Supreme Leader" of "Axis of Evil" Iran, into a prophet of peace in the Middle East?

That is the disturbing question that must be asked after Iraq's president journeyed this week to plead for support from what was previously described by the White House as one of the world's most menacing rogue regimes.

The White House is desperately twisting itself into knots to find a way out of an Iraq debacle sure to top the political agenda in the '08 presidential election. Having idiotically dug ourselves a terribly deep hole in Iraq -- remember when protesters against the war were mocked for using the word "quagmire"? -- Bush is now forced to beg Syria and Iran to throw us a rope. snip

And don't expect Tehran's theocrats to be magnanimous in victory. The key message from Ayatollah Khamenei on Tuesday was, as the BBC headline put it, "U.S. troops must leave Iraq if security is to be restored." This is not idle chitchat when it comes from a man who possesses perhaps the most influence with the violent Shiite militias that now form both the backbone of Baghdad's "democratic" government and one side of what NBC and other major media outlets are finally willing to call a civil war.

So it is that Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was so desperate in his pleas to the ayatollah, admitting, "We are in dire need of Iran's help in establishing security and stability in Iraq."