Zak
Nice to meet an honest man. Everyone likes to pretend that Bush and Blair invaded Iraq because they are either mad, Christian or both.
But...if they are not crazy though they must know something the rest of us don't.
And that something is coming to light. Oil has peaked- well it has in Saudi which basically means the world has peaked. see www.peakoil.net Matt Simmons is talking over 300 bucks a barrel for oil. Bear in mind that GW knows a heck of a lot more about the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia than most folks.
So he and Blair know that our backs are against the wall economically (our is both the EU and the US) Only France has had the smarts to build huge nuclear capacity and invest big time in public transport (with government money). The rest of us are stuck with the last dregs of oil in Iraq and Iran.
So the kid gloves are off and we are in a fight for survival. BTW not survival of "the american way of life" but just old fashioned survival.
Notice that Blair is desperately trying to build nuclear capacity in Britain.
I think they are panicking a bit. The US does not actually have a huge army- big airforce but you can't hold ground with an airforce. The job is bigger than they thought and they can't bring the draft back which is what they should do right now. The Turkish army is nearly ten times the size of the US army and equipped to a fair NATO standard barring the close air support.