I can add little to this excellent Rozen report, but I would like to make one point. The age in which people all over the world are happy to be oppressed, told how to live and what to think, is ending. Not just here, where fat and comfortable Americans can sit around and feel all radical while they read blogs and use curse words about Bush, but also abroad. Not everything is changing because of the Internet, but rapid, open communication has let loose a genie that won’t go back into the bottle. That genie is one in which people can turn on the satellite TV station of their choice, read information they believe and trust because it speaks to them, and compare how they live with those not only around them, but around the world.

Of course the Saudis are “worried” about the reaction to Hezbollah’s victories. Like our Masters, the Saudi Royalty can only exist so long as people all over the Middle East believe they are the best keepers of the holy sites of Islam. The minute enoughh people are motivated to act on the truth of how Arab and Islamic leaders in many of these corrupt nations really are, well- let’s just say that it’s time for an Islamic Gandhi or MLK. I love Laura.

“For a long time, Americans were beating the nuclear weapons drum, and countries in the region were saying, ’Yeah, yeah, yeah, we hear you, sure, whatever you say,’ ” he continued. “I think, in the region, while people were concerned about the nuclear issue, what really spooked the Arab regimes was the reaction after Hezbollah’s triumph in Lebanon and the popular reaction in their own countries of infatuation with Hezbollah, and Iran’s defiance.”

Go read the whole thing, it’s more of what you probably already know: war in Iran seems nigh inevitable at this point, and once again the “reason” for it is changing. Kristol is on record saying Bush will “deal” with Iran one way or another before he leaves, and we all know Bush only has “one way.”

The article is also interesting in that it demonstrates that once again, Bush and the neocons are hypocrites of the first order. Publically, every Muslim is a dirty, bomb-covered towelhead demon worshipper out to nuke daycare centers in Iowa after raping all the white women they can get their hands on. Privately, Muslims are just fine, so long as they hold hand with Bush in Crawford and help Cheney’s oil buddies continue to pillage the treasure and rip us all off with ever increasing gas prices. The fact that they are bringing us closer to extinction by contributing to the growing climate crisis is just gravy.

Oh, and look who’s back:

The overall group has four or five subgroups, including a recently combined one that focuses on “public diplomacy and promoting democracy” in Iran. That subgroup doled out some of the $85 million that Congress approved to support pro-democracy efforts in Iran. A second subgroup is devoted exclusively to Syria. A third focuses on counter-terrorism issues, and a fourth has a military agenda. Formally overseen by a steering committee headed by National Security Council Middle East adviser Elliott Abrams and James Jeffrey, the State Department’s principal deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs, the so-called ISOG is managed day to day by David Denehy, a senior adviser at State’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and a former official with the International Republican Institute. Denehy has recently told some associates that he plans to move sometime early this year to the Office of the Vice President, where he would continue to coordinate the Iran-Syria group.

In addition to the ISOG, the Pentagon last spring set up a six-person Iranian directorate in the Office of the Secretary of Defense that includes three former members of the Office of Special Plans, a controversial unit established by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that produced discredited intelligence analysis linking Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda.

U.S. officials say that multiple inter-agency meetings on Iran are going on every day under the auspices of the Iran-Syria Policy and Operations Group, and that the pace of activity has quickened. “There are so many meetings; we’re doing stuff, writing papers; actions are being taken,” said one person involved with the group. “It’s very intense.”

Buffy, we need your stake, please.