Caroline Glick is very unhappy with the Bush Administration's abandonment of the Bush Doctrine. While I agree with her analysis concerning Iran (which is that there are only bad scenarios following Iranian success at building nuclear weapons), what she fails to realize (and, as an Israeli, there is no reason she should realize this) is that the President has lost his ability to maneuver politically because the American people are now solidly opposed to the continuation of our involvement in the Iraq War. Therefore, the President is trying to concentrate what power and influence he has left in stabilizing the situation in Iraq (and Afghanistan, for that matter). He has no political room to build support for military action against Iran (or North Korea), so he has acquiesced to the views of those who have been urging negotiations with those countries. It is, of course, still possible that by the end of next year he will conclude that the only way to stop the Iranians from getting the bomb is to use military force. I suspect he hopes that by then the Democrats here at home and the Europeans and others abroad will see that the Iranians refuse to cooperate by giving up their nuclear ambitions. Even if they do not, I can see him ordering a military strike after the election, especially if a Republican is the President-elect. However, I think it is more likely that he will leave this problem for his successor.

Speaking of elections, Bill Kristol is optimistic about the GOP's chances next year. I share his optimism, for reasons I will write about in a future post (soon, I hope). Unfortunately, between my work at Bloomberg in NYC and Hesser College in NH, I have not had as much time to post as in the past.