In Iraq the tissue thin Coalition’s commander announced that the mission to be accomplished in the near term is the capture or death of al Sadr and the destruction of his Mahdi militia. When viewed, as it will be viewed in the Islamic world, in the light of the Israeli strike in Gaza, that policy statement and the subsequent military execution of it will engrave the impression that the Bush-Blair has abandoned the “Roadmap” that they trumpeted just a year ago and adopted the Sharon plan of piecemeal conquest of the Islamic world from the pillars of Hercules to the gates of Zamboanga. Bush and Blair have backed into the Crusade that the President declared on the heels of 9/11They have intensified and expanded the threat of a new and spectacular attack upon their own countries. Not only Al Qaeda but now the entire constellation of Palestinian guerilla organizations has the reason to expand the theatre of their operations to include the continental United States and the British Isles.

At the same time the Department of Homeland Security has been recently quiescent. The threat level limned in primary colors has remained at yellow for a long time. The tide of rumors threatening American infrastructure here at home has ebbed even as the tide of events in Iraq is in the flood. With the President’s party in control of all three branches of government the attention of each branch has turned away from preparing Americans for future terrorist attacks to defending the Administration from any hint that the Republicans in control of America might have some small measure of responsibility for the success of the last domestic terrorist attack. That means that we cannot expect the Bush Administration to use its party’s majority in both houses of Congress to make changes. Were it to do so the failures of the past would be highlighted in the justification for innovative changes.

Nor can we expect the increasingly isolated Bush Department of State to emerge with new and creative diplomatic approaches to bring peace to the region. Subtlety has never been a Bush attribute but that is not the reason. Peace in the Middle East has never been in the interests of the Bush re-election effort. Having made the centerpiece of the retention effort his status as a “war time President” George Bush simply must have a war to be the leader of.

Instead of diplomacy and negotiation we can look for Donald Rumsfeld to seek out new ways to use the hammer of brute force to drive every nail in constructing the Bush re-election platform no matter how many lives it must cost. Nothing less can possibly stave off the greatest political threat to George W. Bush – a just and lasting peace.