When 1 and 1 Equals War

Here's two facts:

1. Bush now sees Iran's nuclear potential as a major threat to the US requiring confrontation, economic sanctions, military action, or "regime change". Perhaps we can think Colin Powell for giving his parthian shot yesterday, declaring the Iranians' nuclear ambitions were a problem for the US -- perhaps throwing Bush into that Briar patch, the one which looks all thorny with geopolitical intrigue, but is Bush's favorite place in all the world.

2. The US continues to have insurgent trouble in Iraq even as the country approaches a democratic election in January, and trains more and more Iraqi army forces.

Neither of these two issues play supremely well at home. How to stop the Iranians in their tracks? How to firm up Iraq's government and put down the insurgency? We have no credible threat toward Iran, since our army is stretched thin in Iraq.

I'll tell you how, if you're a member of Bush's Cheney/Rice/Rumsfeld troika: you train the Iraqi Army, and start that country on a war footing toward Iran. Iraq played the war in the 1980s to a draw, and, golly, wouldn't they like to have another shot, this time with US backing?