Bush, Iraq and The Democrats

Unless I miss my guess, Bush is setting things up so that when the Rethuglicans are punted from office in 2008 (an increasing probability), whoever the Democrats replace him with will be well and truly embroiled in a firestorm that they have no way to succeed.

As I commented before, I don't believe that an additional 20,000 troops on the ground is anywhere near what is needed to be effective in Iraq.

Second, we see BushCo threatening Iraq's government - deflecting the consequences for the US invasion and disruption of the country significantly.

Meanwhile, we see increasing threats that Israel will attack Iran in some kind of pre-emptive action intended to "disable" Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities. (Whatever those might be)

Now, if Israel attacks Iran, the entire region will turn into an inferno that few of us really want to contemplate. Iran is well armed, and will retaliate against Israel. Like it or not, that will take the "gloves off" with regards to the insurgencies in both Iraq and Afghanistan. If Iran is not currently an active participant in those two conflicts, it will become one quite quickly, turning everything from Iraq through to Afghanistan into a war zone.

If the States can convince Israel to make the 'pre-emptive' strike, the fallout will polarize things quite strongly. The US will find itself pushed by the relatively powerful Israeli lobby in the US to stand with Israel against Iran, and most of the Arab world will side with Iran/Iraq/Afghanistan in an effort to push "western" powers out of the region.

This will not be a small conflagration on the world stage, but rather one big enough to create two key problems - first the American military, for all of its might, will not be big enough to settle things down. Second, it will be a big enough conflagration to push the US government into a state of near bankruptcy as it tries to settle things down with military force.

In either case, whoever is in power in the White House will not be able to easily extricate themselves from the mess. The Rethuglicans, if not in power, will be play on how they "had it in the bag" if it weren't for an "obstructive" Democrat majority in the legislative houses.