How does the dynamic of this election change in the next six months if we wake up one morning and this is playing out on our television screens.

The Bush Administration has made it clear that they seek to resolve the Iranian problem before it leaves office. They have defined the Iranian problem in quite stark terms. It's a nation pursuing an illegal nuclear weapons program. It's a nation that retains the status, according to the United States, as the largest state-sponsor of terror in the world today. And if you listened to the testimony of General Petraeus and Admiral Crocker, it's the nation solely responsible for all that ails the United States in Iraq today. President Bush responded to Petraeus and Crocker's testimony by calling the Iranians criminals, noting that they will be crushed.

...

When we talk about the initiation of the conflict, the Bush Administration continues to live under the illusion that it can limit this conflict. I concur that once we initiate . . . I was always trained in the military that the enemy has a vote. There's the other side of the coin. When you start something, you've suddenly lost control. No plan survives initial contact with the enemy.

...

If Iran retaliates, it will lead to the spinning out of control. If they shut down the Straits of Hormuz, which they can do, if they intervene into Saudi oil production in the eastern oil fields, if they shut down Kuwaiti oil production, if they unleash the hounds of war in southern Iraq and shut down oil production there, and tie down American troops there, if they fire ballistic missiles against the state of Israel, thereby prompting an Israeli retaliation--all of these things are well within the realm of the possible, I would even say probable in terms of Iranian retaliation, but all of them will create a massive escalation of the conflict, spinning dangerously out of control.

And probably the scariest part of it all:

There's no constitutional impediment to prevent the President from launching a military strike against Iran.

They have the biggest hard-on in the history of mankind for an attack on Iran.  Is this why John McCain is so heartily embracing Bush's war-president mantra?  Because if we attack Iran the case will be made that by electing McCain we won't be "changing horses in midstream with all the conflict overseas".  Has McCain possibly received some assurances from the administration that this is in the cards and that is why he has no qualms about flipping his view on our military adventures in the Middle East?

I put nothing past this administration.  They have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are willing, and often eager, to use our soldiers as political tools to further their agenda.  It just fits too well with their well documented modus operandi.

Just something I've been pondering.  

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity"