Don, I think it's a combination of factors...not just one interpretation for the whole shebang. I think there are powerful financial and business factors behind it, all right, as was set out in the original post of this thread. There are strategic military considerations too. I think the fundamentalist Christian thing is also part of it. Those three things can work together. Bush may indeed believe the fundamentalist stuff. If so, then he plays perfectly into the hands of his corporate backers, some of whom are almost certainly far more pragmatic than he is. How about that for a possibility?

- LH