Bob,

I submit that the reverse is true here -- the administration pursued the war out of some certain conviction that it had to have foundations sunk deep into Mideast soil. If it took some dead, well, that was the price of steering civilization the way Bush felt it had to go. But there was never any desire except to get in. Partly this was because that was where the oil was. Partly it was to have a place from which to perhaps block the planetary Jihad. Partly...well, who knows what all the damn threads in Bush' head were. I can only shudder to think.

But the embedding of the West into the subsoil of the near/mid-East has been intentional.

My wee thought for the day, anyway.

A