Watching Sen. Lieberman (CFL-CT) on Meet The Press shows that he doesn’t know a thing about international affairs. Seriously: he knows nothing. He doesn’t understand the way the Middle East works, he doesn’t understand how the war in Iraq has done nothing to improve the security of the United States, or of his beloved Israel, or of the Middle East, as a whole.

And now Joe is once again saying that the people of the United States oppose Bush’s “new” Iraq strategy (and its not-so-veiled threats against Iran and Syria) at their own peril. Joe, you’re dead wrong. Lieberman is simply out of touch with reality. All the war has done is destroy the United States’ credibility in all matters foreign – something that this country can ill afford, and something that will likely take decades to rebuild.

And in case anybody doesn’t know how I feel on this situation: we had every right to invade Afghanistan and we totally undermined our military by under-equipping and under-deploying our troops, thus failing to do the job we set out to do (namely: eliminating Bin Laden). But invading Iraq was wrong on every level. Hussein’s régime was already failing on its own, he he posed zero threat to his neighbors. None. Nada.

And now we are threatening Iran (and have put an air commander in charge of Iraq – somebody who could orchestrate an escalation into Iran). And why? Iran poses no immediate threat to either the U.S. or the Middle East. It is, at best, a third-world country with a few ties to modern culture. It is also a country that isn’t trying to go on the offensive: they simply want to be treated with some respect as a sovereign nation-state.

And we should, even if we don’t agree with them.

And it’s very telling that it took a Republican, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), to call out Lieberman on his claptrap. Lieberman is one of possibly a dozen senators who still have an unquestioning belief in the BushCo (i.e. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, McCain, Graham) doctrine.

Like I said: he’s out of touch with reality – and even with the people of his own state.

(Heck: if less than 42 percent of the population of Utah agrees with the BushCo approach in Iraq, there’s something wrong with the White House’s approach.)

Lieberman, much like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), is acting like an addict: he needs conflict in order to feel (or, in reality, to be) politically relevant, so he’ll keep up his support of sending our troops into harm’s way, under-equipped, under-trained, and often under-qualified. Governmental leaders of Lieberman’s ilk insult their constituencies – and the very premise by which they are elected to office – by claiming moral and intellectual superiority over their critics, even when said critics are the very people these politicians purport to represent.

It’s like the smoker who tries to quit by smoking Camel straights, thinking that the unfiltered smoke will act as a deterrent – only to have the nicotine addiction continue, unabated.

Last time I checked, the United States of America was a democratic republic, formed on the concept of representational democracy. Our congressmen are there to represent the views and opinions of their constituents, nothing more. Yes, it was different in the early days of the U.S., when the government didn’t wholly trust the population, but times have changed, as has the makeup of the federal government.

But Holy Joe doesn’t seem to remember this. He is an embarrassment to the people of Connecticut, whether conservative or liberal.

I’m sorry that Connecticut is stuck with him for another six years.