Like many of you, I have tried to read and understand what is REALLY going on behind the fog.  This piece may help others understand the truth and why the Neo-Cons blew their chance.  Now, what's next?  Keep your fingers crossed for some way out of this Geo-Political MESS!
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Brief outline - recommend you read the entire article.
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Simply put: Bush and Cheney and their band of neo-conservative war hawks, with their special relationship to the capacities of Israel in Iraq and across the Mideast, were given a chance.

The chance was to deliver on the US strategic goal of control of petroleum resources globally, to ensure the US role as first among equals over the next decade and beyond.

Not only have they failed to "deliver" that goal of US strategic dominance, they have also threatened the very basis of continued US hegemony, or as the Rumsfeld Pentagon likes to term it, "Full Spectrum Dominance".

fully.

Molly Ivins writes about politics, Texas and other bizarre happenings.

She writes;

Whether you agree or not, it is a discussion well worth having and one that should not be shut down before it can start by unfair accusations of "anti-Semitism." In a very equal sense, none of this is academic. The Israel lobby was overwhelmingly in favor of starting the war with Iraq and is now among the leading hawks on Iran.

To the extent that our interests do differ from those of Israel, the matter needs to be discussed calmly and fairly. This is not about conspiracies or plots or fantasies or anti-Semitism -- it's about rational discussion of American interests. And, in my case, being pro-Israel. I'm looking forward to hearing from all you nutjobs again.

The supporters of America's venture into Iraq have what appears to be a gambling problem, and they're not going to stop until they've lost the house.  As a member of the anti-war community, I was right (even in hindsight) to protest the war before Bush committed our troops to this horrible decision.  Now the stakes are such that we need an intervention in our government, and we need it now.