"You can write the next paragraph yourself. Sixteen months ago, Powell wanted to isolate Bin Laden from other Muslims, so he said Bin Laden was lying about being involved in Iraq. Now Powell wants to justify war against Iraq, so he says Bin Laden is telling the truth. Same claim, same media outlet, same speaker, same U.S. official assessing the claim, same congressional venue, different U.S. agenda, different result.

The punch line? Bin Laden was talking about hypocrisy."

Slate's William Saletan commenting on Powell's reaction to the latest message from Bin Laden.  These are the kind of actions that make it VERY easy for folks to question the link between terrorism and Iraq that the Administration is attempting to draw. 

Questioning that link as presented is not un-American, it's the end result of completely rational thought processes.  If the Administration wants to be taken seriously, they need to drop their presumptive claims that al-Qaeda and Iraq are in bed together.  Its not a convincing case, and there are much better cases to be made - namely that Iraq is in breach of UN resolutions, is deceiving the inspectors as we speak and is a dangerous regional force that needs to be put down.

Unfortunately, I suspect they've botched up their political strategy on this so badly that there is probably no recovery and they will have to live with the fact that completely reasonable people are going to question their every move.  I can only imagine the mess we're now going to be in if the war goes badly.

"CIA Director George J. Tenet, who joined Jacoby in briefing the Senate Armed Services Committee, also acknowledged the North Koreans have the capability to reach the western United States with a long-range missile.

Previous U.S. intelligence reports have said such a missile probably could carry a nuclear weapon-sized payload across the Pacific Ocean."

How long do you suppose the missile will remain untested once we move on Saddam?

I wonder how much longer Bush can pretend Iraq is the bigger threat.  Combine this with the recent reports (subscription only) that North Korea may have sold Iraq some intermediate range scuds and I think it's easy to see who is the bigger threat to American interests.

Note that this shouldn't imply that I'm against war in Iraq.  I just think Bush's priorities are bass-ackwards in this particular case and have said so for a while.  Whatever happened to that two-war doctrine anyhow?

Every day we don't do something about North Korea, we display the same irrelevance we're so excited to point out at the UN and NATO.  The lesson that will be learned from our continuing cries of regional containment in the Koreas while screaming for Saddam's head in the Middle East: 

If you want to avoid pre-emption by the US, get yourself some nukes as quick as you can.

[via Drudgereport]