"Bush's Option to Escalate the War in Iraq"

[GreenPartyVoter]

The Bush administration may ratchet up the Iraq war.

That might seem unlikely, even farfetched. After all, the president is facing an upsurge of domestic opposition to the war. Under such circumstances, why would he escalate it?

A big ongoing factor is that George W. Bush and his top aides seem to believe in red-white-and-blue violence with a fervor akin to religiosity. For them, the Pentagon's capacity to destroy is some kind of sacrament. And even if more troops aren't readily available for duty in Iraq, huge supplies of aircraft and missiles are available to step up the killing from the air.

Back in the USA, while the growth of antiwar sentiment is apparent, much of the criticism -- especially what's spotlighted in news media -- is based on distress that American casualties are continuing without any semblance of victory. In effect, many commentators see the problem as a grievous failure to kill enough of the bad guys in Iraq and sufficiently intimidate the rest.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0822-20.htm

[Kelvin Mace]

1. My take

is that he will play up the "agreement" on the constitution as a big win. He will talk a big game about future troop withdrawals, while digging in to the new bases in Iraq.

Once he gets past the danger period (the 2006 elections), he will ratchet up the attacks, including raids into Syria and Iran to "stop the flow of support" to insurgents. BTW then the economy will be in full meltdown.