Spanish and German views of Bush's Iraq War sales job

Eric Gomez' World Blog for the San Francisco Chronicle really has some good stuff. It's almost enough to give you hope that the major dailies will someday "get" what blogging is about. Today he brings us summaries of coverages of Bush's Iraq War sales speech on Monday from a Spanish paper and a German one.

Meanwhile, commentator Andrés Ortega notes in Spain's El País that, the longer the Iraq war drags on, the more the real winner of the conflagration will be Iran. Ortega looks back to 2002, when Bush identified North Korea, Iraq and Iran as a three-point "axis of evil" in the world. He points out that, now, "four years later, Pyongyang is still holding its ground, the Bush administration's policies haven't undone Iraq as much as Iraq has undone the Bush administration, and this [development] has given Iran much more influence and power" in the region in general and especially with regard to Iraq. For starters, Iran's oil is worth more.

Understandably, while recognizing in his speech that "the situation in Iraq is still tense," Bush did not acknowledge, as much of the rest of the world has by now, that his policies and mistakes have directly helped fan the flames of the ever-escalating violence. With Iraq's increasing instability and other regional uncertainties in mind, a commentator for Germany's Berliner Umschau asked plainly: "Is the next world war in sight?"

Oh, that's a grim thought!

Original articles:

Y el ganador es... ¡Irán! [And the winner is ... Iran!] de Andrés Ortega El País 13.03.06
Eine neue "Entente Cordiale"? Ist der Nächste Weltkrieg in Aussicht? [A new "Entente Coriale"? Is the next world war in sight?" von Karl Weiss Berliner Umschau 14.03.06

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