This following is not pretty, but real politics seldom are.

For strategic reasons, Israel dreads a united Moslem front. Easy communication and weapons technology transfers between Iran and Syria through Iraq have to be denied by any and all means possible.

First, Israel's goals were to get the US in, accomplished mainly through intellignece feeds through the Office of Special Plans.

Second, Israel's goals were to keep the US in as long as possible, and here Isreal did not have to do much. The DC lobbyists accomplished their goals for them.

Third, Israel's goals will be to plunge Iraq into civil war immediately after the US withdraws. Israel's goal will be an independant Kurdish nation controlling the new Shiite Iraq's borders with Syria.

Our media simply fails to report, and in doing so they effectively lie to us. For example, main stream media do not report on the formation and strngth of the Kurd and Shiite militias. As another example, they did not report the recent meeting between the governments of Iraq and Iran and their insuance of a joint statement condemning Israel. These are conscious editorial decisions, and they know what will happen if they actually perform their job: they have the example of the silencing of CNN by the threat of withholding advertising dollars before them, another fact which they do not report.

The only way out of this mess is a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. W. is working on this, but as the Israeli extremists would rather have more Palestinian land than peace, you can look for W. to go down.

I hope I am wrong, but I can not see how. Whatever happens, it appears we're powerless to stop it, and we'll all be going along for the ride. Its like a train wreck, and however much I try to look the other way, I find myself looking on, hoping against facts that things will take a turn for the better.