For someone allergic to partisanship, you sure seem to think I take my marching orders from Bush.

If there were a better way, George W. Bush would have already thought of it

That isn't what I said. What I said is that I have heard no better ideas from anyone else. I still haven't, although Mary Anne gave it a damn good shot.

Here's just a few basic facts, in no particular order:

- There were no troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Clinton was in power, when 9/11 was planned.

- Al Qaeda was formed in Saudi Arabia in response to U.S. forces being on Saudi soil.

- The U.S. forces were there to support the first Gulf War and its aftermath.

- Gulf War I resulted in the dismantling of an active nuclear weapons program in Iraq that the U.N. knew nothing about.

- Thousands of Iraqis were dying every year from sanctions

- Saddam was waiting for sanctions to be lifted to resume weapons work.

- Syria and Iran are actively supporting the insurgency in Iraq

- Guantanamo is primarily supporting the war in Afghanistan and the roundup of al Qaeda and other terrorists in that area

- Al Qaeda is no happier that we are in Afghanistan than Iraq

You can add a lot of other items and their corollaries. The Pakistan nuclear ring. North Korea's weapons shipments to the Middle East, and willingness to sell to anyone with cash. Wild cards like Libya, Algeria, and various states that used to be part of the old Soviet Union. India and Pakistan, and our balancing act. The oil market. The nationalities of the suicide bombers. Saddam's sons. The flow of Saddam's money before the war. Sudan. Iran's nuclear program, and its leaders declaring they could survive a nuclear exchange with Israel. North Korea's nuclear program. Venezuela, and its oil. Mexico. The European Union and its currency.

This all ties into a large latticework of relationships. Ideally, I should be able to diagram it, but I can't.

But what comes out the other end are a number of conclusions. Here are just a few:

The 9/11 attack was a direct result of Gulf War I, which, if it had not been fought, would have resulted in great danger to the Middle East and the rest of the world. If the 9/11 attack had been prevented, it would have been something else eventually. Nobody would have accepted back then the domestic security arrangement required to stop this sort of thing. Even after 9/11, there is hostility about our security systems.

The situation in Iraq prior to the latest war was not stable, financially or politically. The war in Iraq would have happened eventually. Maybe on Bush's watch, maybe later.

Most of the same problems we are having with the war in Iraq would have happened anyway with a war only in Afghanistan. The same flies would have been drawn there. The only difference would have been different supply lines.

The insurgency in Iraq is not a home-grown affair. We need to lean on Syria and Iran harder, but military action, even with sufficient resources to accomplish it, is not the way to go at this point.

Both Syria and Iran have active antigovernment movements that could be exploited. Bad news corrolary: Both Syria and Iran are unstable.

Lebanon might be finding a way to democracy. Then they'll be stuck between Syria and Israel.

We cannot withdraw from Iraq. If we do, the same thing will happen as happened after the first Gulf War--mass slaughter. And every bastard around the world will know we can still be beaten by making a war too messy for the home front. We are already paying dearly for teaching this lesson in Somalia, Beirut, and other places. Bin Laden did not think we would retaliate for 9/11.

North Korea cannot be permitted to deploy nuclear weapons. They will sell them to ANYONE. We cannot attack North Korea militarily without China's consent. Good luck getting it.

China is arming up. A lot.

Iran, with nuclear weapons and delivery methods, stands a finite chance of striking Israel with them, and have said they could.

The oil market, apparently controlled by people nervous enough to make Don Knotts look like a Buddhist monk, will freak out if supplies in the Middle East are affected in any way. The fact that we get most of our oil elsewhere is irrelevant to psychological effects like this.

We are going to be dependent on oil for quite some time.

We cannot crush the Islamist birthplaces in Saudi Arabia without screwing up the oil market, or worse.

The Kurds. Turkey.

Pakistan is on our side in the war on terror. Barely. We strong-armed them with the Kahn connection, and it worked. They helped blow the whistle on Libya. Western Pakistan is making its own rules. Only one leader, a survivor of a number of assassination attempts, stands between us and a nuclear-armed Pakistan that might just go into al Qaeda's camp.

Oh, and not to forget Israel and the Palestinians, although at least none of them are shooting at us at this point.

Al Qaeda is building camps in Algeria. Now what?

Sudan.

Special bonus: The U.N. is completely impotent to do anything about any of this.

Many of the things listed above have changed, some radically, since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan started.

Everything I've mentioned is public knowledge. God knows what other conclusions could be made if I had access to all the CIA and other intelligence.

Now, how easy is Bush's job?

You want people to come up with bright ideas here on the Zone. Go down the above list. Go for it.

Frankly, I think the U.S. is going to muddle through all this same as it has many other crises in our history. The only "plan" we've had in other wars is to fight until the other guy stops. Nobody knew when Pearl Harbor was attacked that the war would last about four years. For all they knew it could have been ten years. Or more.

I do know that if Bush disappeared in a cloud of purple smoke, and the person of your choice suddenly became President, not a hell of a lot would change.