The Coming War with Iran

Whether President Bush gets his 40,000 new troops in Iraq, or as the generals have reportedly told him recently, a paltry 9,000 available from our "overstretched" 1.4 million warriors in uniform, they will, beyond a doubt, be needed.

Someone needs to guard Fort Apache when we send out the cavalry to attack Iran.

The majority of pundits who are examining Bush's idea for a troop surge - with all the zeal of Rubik's Cube fanatics - are rightly baffled by the move. What on earth could a temporary boost in troops do for Iraq? And if it really has a chance to work, why the hell make it temporary?

The problem is that the prognosticators, with few exceptions, are spending all their time with a rigged Cube that Bush and company tossed them. Bush isn't producing an "I Love the '80s" VH-1 special, he's playing football. And Iran is his Hail Mary play.

If Bush were a boxer, he'd be known as "The Telegraph Kid" to anyone who had the vaguest expertise in fisticuffs or the waging of war. In 2002, he sent hundreds of thousands of U.S. and coalition troops to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, all the while saying war was still avoidable - if only Iraq would turn over its weapons of mass destruction. However, no president in the 20^th century has ever employed gunboat diplomacy or "poker politics" by sending invasion-level troops next door to a perceived enemy as a "bluff" or "intimidation tactic." To do that, you send carrier groups. You move 5,000 to 10,000 Marines up close and personal on ships. You don't spend all that money on charter airliners and commercial shipping to build up a 300,000-member Bluff Force.

But thanks to the ever-gullible mainstream media pundits in this country, most believed Bush when he assured us that there was still a chance of peace up to the last minute - even up to the days before the invasion when Bush kicked out U.N. weapons inspectors from Iraq. (See: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/17/iraq/main544280.shtml)