Imagine it's six months from now. The Iraq war is over. After an initial burst of joy and gratitude at being liberated from Saddam's rule, the people of Iraq are watching, and waiting, and beginning to chafe under American occupation. Across the border, in Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, our conquering presence has brought street protests and escalating violence. The United Nations and NATO are in disarray, so America is pretty much on its own. Hemmed in by budget deficits at home and limited financial assistance from allies, the Bush administration is talking again about tapping Iraq's oil reserves to offset some of the costs of the American presence--talk that is further inflaming the region. Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence has discovered fresh evidence that, prior to the war, Saddam moved quantities of biological and chemical weapons to Syria. When Syria denies having such weapons, the administration starts massing troops on the Syrian border. But as they begin to move, there is an explosion: Hezbollah terrorists from southern Lebanon blow themselves up in a Baghdad restaurant, killing dozens of Western aid workers and journalists. Knowing that Hezbollah has cells in America, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge puts the nation back on Orange Alert. FBI agents start sweeping through mosques, with a new round of arrests of Saudis, Pakistanis, Palestinians, and Yemenis.

To most Americans, this would sound like a frightening state of affairs, the kind that would lead them to wonder how and why we had got ourselves into this mess in the first place. But to the Bush administration hawks who are guiding American foreign policy, this isn't the nightmare scenario. It's everything going as anticipated.

-- Joshua Micah Marshall

I'm not sure what bothers me more: what is apparently the underlying geopolitical strategy of the war in Iraq, in which Iraq becomes just a beach-head -- the Normandy of the US-versus-the-Islamic-World War -- which has been touted by people like SDB and the neocons who have Bush's ear, or the incredible cynicism that the Administration won't discuss it with the American people.

Yee-haw, it's time for the true March Madness!!!

Jane Galt asks: do executives necessarily make good or bad Presidents? This is one of her more interesting posts.

For myself, I tend to agree with her sentiment that there probably isn't any job out there that really qualifies one to be President -- but going a bit farther, I have to admit to a certain distrust of any person, whether they're on my side of the political fence or not, who actually wants the job. I just find something inherently scary about any person who actually aspires to the power of the Presidency, regardless of what he or she wants to do with it.