President Disaster's actions only make any sense if one believes his strategy is divide and conquer. His goal is to keep the Sunni vs. Shia thing going so that al Qaeda is preoccupied fighting Shia thereby diverting resources from attacks on the West. It also makes SA and the other gulf states dependant on U.S. military protection, giving us influence over the disposition of their oil. This strategy, although I think it will be another disaster like 911 and New Orleans, might be thought of as the Revenge of the Americans. My philosophy is if you see a cow pie don't step in it, but others will disagree.

Have to disagree here, President Disaster didn't have a clear plan at all and this is blowback. He's destroyed Iraq, destabilized Pakistan, may well draw KSA into Iraq, and handed the whip to Iran. The gulf is already dependent on the US military, and I doubt al Qaeda are preoccupied fighting the Shia. They're focused on secular Sunni, we did a nice job for them taking out Iraq, and Pervez Musharraf is walking a knife edge. This may all blow up into Shia vs Sunni, but I'm very skeptical that that was Bush's plan -- if only because widespread sectarian war would make the cost of doing oil business in the ME and the price of gas back home prohibitive.

President Disaster didn't have a clear plan at all and this is blowback.

Perhaps the 'death squad' approach was not planned at the outset. But after the initial failure of the occupation, it became Plan B. The so-called 'Salvador option for Iraq' was explicitly announced almost two years ago, in Newsweek magazine, by John "death squad" Negroponte, who helped to engineer similar US-supported death squads in Central America the 1980's. Now perhaps we are getting ready for Plan C.

The war in Iraq can now only be won by those who are willing to be the most ruthless and inflict the most terror on the people. Is the US military willing to take on this role? If not, get out.

Al Qaeda attack on the West will kill maybe a few hundred of us per hit. As long as the IT people have got good back up plans, this will mean very little. An effective attack on some critical target in the Middle East could mean world economic disaster. George Bush should either reinstated the draft and send a hundred thousand troops there or get out and ensure the US gets cured of the oil addiction.