The political reality is that if we in the U.S. are being scammed - if the war is unwinnable or a grab for oil - then this president and this policy will be ended by the American people in November 2004, and the world will have no reason to fear a preemptive U.S. war for at least 20-30 years. We will kick ourselves and mourn the dead for decades to come.

If, on the other hand, this is somehow a shortcut to Mid-East peace, well.....then we'll be glad we took the risk and defied the world.

BTW - The battles of the 20th Century convinced most of us that all the great questions of the day can be reduced to questions of finance. So much so that many fear this war MUST BE about oil or business or commerce. Maybe it is.

But a longer look at history allows us to see that some leaders of the past have craved power, or glory, or honor, or hatred. We need to reawaken ourselves to the other motivations of human beings.

Well, it's beacuse that region happends to have a history extending further back than 1600's. Wars are integral part of any society that has some history to speak off.

If you look little closer, majority of GW administration made their private fortunes in oil industry. Bush, Cheney, Rice (sp?) ...

Also, there are huge (we are talking billions of dollars) future restoration and oil-contracts being awarded just as we speak. If you would care to check, you'll notice that executive of one of those companies is personal friend of GWB and that other high member of administration used to (surprize!) work as executive in one of thoose.

American inhouse oil production is thinning out, and demand is raising which forces US to import more and more oil. Analysis say that ratio of production/import has to rise to 65% of import to cover demand in next ten years.

Iraq sits on sizable oil-deposits and they, if controlled by US, could lessen US dependence on OPEC setting oil prices and thus allow "american lifestyle living" blokes to drive their V8 for ten more years...and after that? Well, who cares, GWB won't be sitting there and that pesky global warming thing?...ahh, it's probably something those tree-huggers just came up with, right? :)

This war, low down, is a risky gamble of controlling oil supply and also (empty) gesture of "doing something agains terrorists" which will hopefully be swallowed by hords of scared and non-aware citizens (and they are unfortunately, quite many) which are supposed to be "awed" by "swift decisions" and vote republican next time around.

Plan has been wrapped in "we will help inforce democracy and overthrow dictator" -package. (Un)fortunately it seems to be backfiring big time as things aren't going the way Rumsfeld tought they were.

Tommy Franks initially asked for many more troups to tackle the invasion, but Rumsfeld relied on Shias and Kurds raising against Saddam as soon as war started, cutting down original 400 000 soldiers to just around 250 000. Also, war was supposed to go much faster. As this war is an investment into a region and it's oil-rights, it probably had some sort of "break-even" point that has probably being overshot now.

"Uprising" didn't materialize and now we have prolonged war with following logistic nightmare and escalating cost. To make matter worse, "humanistic" aspect of "liberating Iraq" is just getting tougher and tougher to maintain, as Iraqis doesn't seem to want to be "liberated" and are beggining to employ guerilla-style tactics drawing coalition forces into costly urban-area confrontations which wasn't anticipaced by Rumsfeld. 90% of turk population is against intervention which made it impossible to deploy troops trough turkey.

On the end, even if i leave humanitarian, ethic and political aspects of this war aside (which shouldn't be done) i have hard time seeing it as a sucess...even if it's originally being waged just to securing flow of oil. It's costs (originally to be recouped by oil-income from a region) are escallating and "humanistic"-wrap hastilly assembled around it to please Joe Public is crumbling.

Saddam is a dictator, and did do nasty things to his own population during it's stay in power but calling this war "a liberation" and "war agains terrorism" is bending truth so much it's verging on hypocrisy.

See it, folks: he was there, sitting duck on a ocean of oil, no weapons to talk about, and history of bad things. A perfect target for a questionable president willing to please big-bussines interests (who also happened to finance his campain), secure flow of oil and distract domestic public from internal problems.

In the end, I do truly believe that american people aren't so easily decieved and that this administration will be overturned in 2004, going to annals of history as "one of those bad things that happend" and "wrong people in wrong place at wrong time".

America did do some right moves, especially when it comes to solving crisis in Balkan-region where EU acted teethless at it's best, but it doesn't automatically grants you rights to overturn regimes in other countries at will.

There was a good reason to invade Afghanistan.

The reasons for invading Iraq were slim to non-existant (as killing your own people doesn't count for much due to long tradition). Since most of us in the U.S. didn't believe in these reasons, but still believe in the invasion, some piece of the puzzle is missing.

The missing piece is that there is NO internationally valid reason to invade Saudi Arabia or Egypt (or Iran). Still, these are the real targets of this invasion if the last 10 years of Pentagon strategic thought are to be believed.

In much the same way that Turkey was attacked in WWI, or North Africa in WWII, Iraq was invaded to end or alter the histories of its neighbors.

If it works, it is brilliant.

If it fails, it will likely lead to a generation of horrors.

Let us hope that it works.

Well, Iraq's huge oil-reserves is quite good reason to invade it, don't you think so?

Ironically, cost of this war (around 65 billion $ has been mentioned) is more than what is needed to fund new wave of research in fussion energy long into 21's century. Clean energy that could help lower US (and others) dependence on middle-east oil and ultimatly cut funds to terrorist-cells in the long row.

But hey...why invest in clean energy 30 years ahead when you can burn oil now and keep oil-companies afloat? These people sitting in those positions won't be around in 30 years and they want their money and power now. That your kids will be burned by UV-emissions, suffer from consequences of global-warming and have to pay for costly oil-control interventions is none of their bussines...