John Bolton: "President Ahmadinejad comes out of this as a winner.."

[sabra]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6528235.stm

<snip>

However, former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said President Ahmadinejad was the clear winner and had been strengthened in his pursuit of nuclear weapons.

"President Ahmadinejad comes out of this as a winner on two counts," he said.

"He won by seizing British hostages and he won by unilaterally deciding to release them, having found out the answer to the question I think he was posing, which is - how strong a response will Britain make to this act of taking captive these 15 service members?

"The reaction was - not much at all. I think Ahmadinejad is actually emboldened in his pursuit of nuclear weapons, and I think that means more

[zbdent]

1. I guess averting war is not considered

winning, by the Repukes' standards ...

[rusty charly]

3. "winning": a long protracted quagmire, with no exit, deaths of millions

[Lasher]

2. Seems Publican has-beens like to run their stupid mouths a lot.

Maybe he should form a club with Newt and The Hamper.

[rusty charly]

5. he's running his mouth about NK on cspan right now

[Lasher]

10. Why do they give this idiot airtime?

They should at least make him dye his mustache. Or stop dying his hair. Either way, so they match.

[whistle]

4. The operative title here is "former US ambassador to the United Nations"

....who also was never confirmed by congress to that position, so John Bolton's opinions really have no legitimacy!

As far as what John Bolton is doing now, I don't give a rat's ass as long as he has no official authority in U.S. policy either here or abroad.

[peekaloo]

6. Someday he shall choke upon that mini push broom that sits atop his upper lip.

until then he continues to spew shit.

[Eurobabe]

7. Just saw Yosemite Bolton on TiVO'd Lou Dobbs...

:puke: I deleted him immediately.

[Lasher]

13. Yosemite Bolton, LOL!

Thanks for that. Duly added to my repertoire.

Edit: Or maybe Yosemite John?

[K8-EEE]

19. Ahmadenijad, come out here you varmit! We gonna get you critter!

LOL!

[Lasher]

23. Wheeeeee, this is fun!

Dag nabbit, you rackin frackin Brits! Great horny toadies, I coulda had my next war but nooooooo! You hada come up with a PEEEECEFUL solution! I coulda blowed 'em all ta smithereenies by now!

[Eurobabe]

20. Someone posted a great comic awhile back, let me

see if I can search my archives and find it. It was hilarious! I think it was something by Tom Toles.

I found this one...

[Lasher]

28. Yosemite John

:rofl:

[no_hypocrisy]

8. Reminiscent of M*A*S*H* & Frank Burns telling Hawkeye that he was showing

off every time he saved a patient.

[saltpoint]

9. Bolton likes to shoot his mouth off in the media, but my hunch is

he's completely missed the point. The point is that the families and friends of those sailors will have again the deep assurance of their company. My hunch is that they were missed, and worried over, and cried for, and now they are on their way home.

What a ruthless son-of-a-bitch Bolton is to stand before a camera and mike and instigate bad feeling in a moment when much good could be gauged and celebrated.

[Johonny]

11. Ah yes a winner

He learned the British would negotiate a peaceful end to the conflict between the two countries rather than randomly bomb his country and ensure a negative out come.

[Cha]

12. bolton a pnacer full of shyte..

wants Iran's oil next. Looks for any excuse to start a fuckin' war..next.

[waiting for hope]

14. John Bolton......

like I would take anything that comes out of his mouth seriously....

I loved seeing TDS exchange, Jon Stewart was like a Bulldog with some of his questions, it's so fun to watch RW mouthpieces getting cornered.

[Uncle Joe]

15. Not necessarily, however Bolton does come off as a loser,

and this part was not mentioned on the network news last night, all they could report was how stunned they were at the development, or hinting around that Bush's bravado won the day.

"There, an Iranian envoy has reportedly been given access to five Iranians captured by US forces and a kidnapped diplomat was released on Tuesday."


And no one in network news could see this connection?

[yellowcanine]

16. I love it the way Bolton always is so sure he knows what everyone else is thinking just

because, well, he KNOWS. Most knowledgeable observers of Iran say they are not sure that Ahmadinejad even knew that this event was going to happen, let alone it being part of some scheme for testing the British. It appears to me that some Revolutionary Guards may have done this more or less on their own for their own reasons and the Iranian leadership was forced to make the best of it and avoid losing face - which admitting that they were not entirely in control of the situation would have done.....

[Hubert Flottz]

17. And the world already knew that Bush is a LOSER!

Has been all his life.

[K8-EEE]

18. He acted disappointed at their release on Lou Dobbs yesterday

They're so fucking crazy.

[Bake]

21. People, people! Just because Bolton said it doesn't mean it's wrong!

Ahmadinejad DID come out of this the clear winner. He gets to please his "base" by taking the prisoners in the first place. Even better for him, he gets to look magnanimous with the pardons, statesmanlike even (!!), he successfully tested what the British/US response would be and correctly guessed it would be essentially NOTHING. He gets to look like a serious player on the world stage, even like a diplomat. Blair looks ineffective (which he was).

The whole thing was reckless from day one. Was a war averted? For now. It didn't have to be close enough to be averted in the first place. Brinksmanship is stupid, no matter who does it.

Sadly, there's far too much of this "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" b.s. on DU these days, and far too much knee-jerk reaction rather than thinking.

Bake

[TwilightGardener]

25. Yep--unfortunately, Ahma--whozit just probably made the average Iranians,

who apparently weren't crazy about him before, look at him with a little more respect. But there isn't much we could have done. Or Britain--their folks didn't want to start another war over this. Sad truth is, everything we've done in the Middle East is having unintended consequences, and this is one of them.

[Bake]

27. Not just unintended consequences, totally unforeseen ones

Ones that even a blind person could have seen coming. Instead, what we got was "we'll be greeted as liberators" ... "it'll be a cakewalk" ... etc.

But our "leaders" couldn't see past their ideological noses.

Bake

Edited because I can't type for sh*t today.

[bbgrunt]

22. my question is how the h*** has this asshat suddenly become

a spokesman showing up all over the tv? It seems the media are test driving every jerk out there--like Delay was on every channel a few weeks ago and newty boy is given a chance to insult us all whenever he wants. What does it take to rid our public airways of these vermin with lives like cockroaches?

[Strelnikov_]

24. Comforting that our former UN Ambassador does not even know

(correction, is pretending not to know) who is really in charge in Iran.

But, of course, the truth is too complicated for the proles. The Reich has to keep the object of the two minute hate simple.

An Ayatollah rarely seen, a secretive Guardian Council, is just not a good face for the 'enemy' in our media sound bite driven world.

Looks to me like there was a power struggle between the Revolutionary Guard camp and the more moderate camp after some local Guard commander went off the reservation, and the moderates won out, of which Ah-jad is clearly not one of.

Oh, well. Sorry to interrupt.

[Disturbed]

26. Why does this Asshole get US Corp Media time?

He was rejected by Congress but Busholini defied Congress and appointed him anyway. The US Corp Media gives this reject air time because he is controversial and sparks interest from some of their viewers. It is about keeping viewers long enough to sell product.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

29. Yeah John. Look who he is up against as far as image is concerned.