I haven't followed this terribly closely, but aren't the two standard critisims:

1) this up-arming of arab states is a reaction to the Iraq War
2) Bush's approach to Iran has been talk, not actual diplomacy - he hasn't offered any real give-and-take with the Iranians.

And I'm going to use this as an opportunity to once again vent one of my chief complaints about Bush: he has never had the leadership to call for a national program to figure out how to curb our use of oil. Oil doesn't just fund terrorism, now it'll fund a nuclear-armed Middle East as well.

I like how it's now the fault of "the West", instead of the United Nations, that Iran is still developing nukes. If the U.S. had used force in any way to stop Iran, it would have been pilloried by the international community (as well as by many Americans).

It's always so rich, GB, that you (i) like to talk about responsibility and fault but can never seem to find it in you to acknowledge that the six-year Bush administration, backed by an amazingly compliant Congress, has any responsibility for the predictible consequences of its actions and (ii) continually whine about how the US is always pilloried by our erstwhile allies abroad and by surrender monkeys at home.

This Administration has pretty much done whatever the hell it wanted to, and scorned the opinions of others, at home or abroad. Real men don't need permission from "the West" OR the UN to defend America. So why all the hand-wringing now? Is the Project for a New American Century not going well, and you need to find a reason to blame somebody except the neocons, their backers in the Administration and the Fighting 101st?

But you still might very well get the war you've been hoping for GB, so there's no reason to admit now that the Administration has any respnsibility for how its actions have fueled insecurity and nuclear ambitions everywhere, is there? After all, our war machine is now motion, and will soon be prepared to strike Iran. SUch a strike will surely make not only the US, but the whole world safer, right?

And what stands in the way, except defeatists at home, who might yank the Congressional support out from under Bush? But thank goodness for steel-minded men like Cheney and Bush - after all, they surely don't need no stinkin' Congressional approval to do the right thing, do they?

Come to think of it, what the hell are YOU whining for - have you lost faith in the Administration and the neocon adventure as well? If that's the case, why not just stop blogging about it, instead of continuing to send out these enervating, hand-wringing, depressing message?

The Bush administration and America surely deserve a little more fortitude and faith in teh neocon project than you seem to be capable of showing.

"The key word here is "failure". By saying the West failed at stopping Iran, the article implies that it was the West's responsibility to stop Iran in the first place."

you infer that, the article doesn't imply it.

saying the West failed merely acknowledges the fact that it made an attempt, not that it was "responsible."