Let us Demonize

I stole this link from the Illustrated Daily Scribble which you can visit via a link to the right.

Looking for a Villain
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, March 14, 2006; 12:42 PM

President Bush always does better against an enemy. His strongest public support has come when demonizing Osama bin Laden (not hard), Saddam Hussein (a bit harder) -- and then John Kerry (his finest achievement).

But as the morass in Iraq seems to worsen day by day, identifying the enemy there has become increasingly difficult. Is it Sunnis? Shiites? Foreign terrorists? The insurgency? Saddamists? Independent militias? Is it us?

Yesterday brought two strong signs that even as Bush is trying -- and failing -- to placate the public about Iraq, he's increasingly keen to focus attention on a new villain: Iran.

...As Jim Axelrod reported on the CBS Evening News: "For a speech designed to build support for the war in Iraq, the biggest headline was accusing Iran of being behind some of the worst violence."

Caroline Daniel writes in the Financial Times: "In a sign of hardening US rhetoric against Iran and an effort to shift some blame for the turbulence in Iraq, President George W. Bush yesterday accused Tehran of supplying components for some of the most powerful improvised explosive devices used in Iraq."