Yesterday I talked about the declining situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. After we heard continuous vows from administration officials that our military could handle two wars at once, we know see that may not be the case.

Now we are facing even more dilemmas. We got Iran, who has now said they will not respond to our latest package until mid-August, which of course is pissing off Bush:

President Bush on Wednesday accused Iran of dragging its feet on a Western incentive package aimed at getting Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment activity. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said earlier in the day that his country will respond by mid-August to the proposals presented to Tehran in early June by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

If Iran accepts the offer, it has to suspend its uranium enrichment — a process that can produce material for nuclear generators or bombs.

“We’ll come to the table when they verifiably suspend. Period,” Bush said at an annual U.S.-European Union summit here.

He said that the mid-August timetable “seems like an awfully long time” to wait for an answer. “It shouldn’t take the Iranians that long to analyze what’s a reasonable deal,” Bush said.

While this may be troubling to numerous people and is certain to get the war drums beating louder, we are also faced with North Korea, who is expected to test fire their missile any day now.

After being awoken by a dog scared of a passing storm early this morning, I decided to do some channel surfing. I turned on PBS and they were broadcasting the BBC World news. I almost forgot what it was like to watch a news station and see actual news and not puff pieces, but that is another story.

During the broadcast, they were talking about the pending test fire by North Korea. The BBC had a reporter in South Korea and he said something that I found very interesting. It seems that South Korea is more worried about the United States overreacting than they are the actual test fire.

This is the damage that has been done by Bush and his pack of war mongering cronies. We are no longer looked at as a nation that promotes peace, prosperity and human rights. Instead we are viewed as a world bully. We proved that in early 2003 when we decided to go into Iraq without the consensus of the U.N.

This is a highly failed foreign policy. When a nation like South Korea views our actions as a bigger threat than North Korea, then our foreign policy is garbage. Sadly, this is also going to pose a nightmare to our next President. How can the United States regain the respect of the international community that it once had?

During the U.S.-E.U. Summit today, the leaders, including Bush, are expected to talk more about the problems with Iraq. This is one meeting I would love to be a fly on the wall at. I wonder if Bush is going to sit there and spin the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan or is he going to be truthful? The “coalition” we used to topple Saddam has now become the coalition of the leaving. Japan announced it was pulling out yesterday and most other nations have pulled their troops, with the exception of the U.K.

Bush said he now wants more international cooperation on the war in Iraq. As good as that may sound, it is just typical spin. Bush’s idea of cooperation is “you do what we say”. He will not be open to ideas to help with the situation and while trying to straighten out that situation they still have to decide what to do with Afghanistan.

There are more troubling days ahead for our nation and sadly we are stuck with a President who does not know how to handle them. We need the support of the world, more now than ever. Bush will not get that support because of his lack of diplomacy and over all attitude. This could lead us into a very dark period in world history and lead to further alienation of the United States.