Invasion of Iranian mission a distraction from the distraction ...

While I don't underestimate the seriousness of the Bushies' threats against Iran in general, the timing of last night's raid on the Iranian mission in Northern Iraq appears designed to distract us from the overwhelmingly negative reaction to the latest Hair-Brained Scheme for Victory.

They are certainly masters of the news cycle.

Meanwhile, not everyone is as thrilled with our recent bombing of Somalia as are our legion of Cheeto-stained war-bloggers (a strike that apparently missed the "senior al Qaeda members that we supposedly targeted) ...

The US military intervention in Somalia -- the first of its kind since a disastrous humanitarian mission ended in 1994 -- has sparked widespread criticism from the international community.

The European Union, United Nations and former colonial power Italy condemned the attacks which they say could only serve to further destabilize an already weakened and volatile region.

The result of what are clearly moves motivated more by domestic politics than any strategic imperative is that the White House seems to be working hard to provide more and more evidence for the Muslim world that the War on Terra is in fact a war on Islam. And while that reality has become obscured to a degree by its emergence as a political argument, it's hard to imagine that, at some point, the chickens aren't going to come home to roost (see, here ($$), for example).