So let's have a thought experiment: Would the US being involved in a shooting war (or massive bombing vs. ground to ship missle war) make it more or less likely that major investigations by a Democratic Majority Congress will get media traction?

Now ask yourself, "What would Karl do?"

You now have the opinions of the two biggest influences on the boy king's decision making.

So if you're Iran, what do you do?

The interesting thing is that the Bush administration will be that last military adventurists of the US for a long time, because we will have no ground strike military capacity to speak of by the time they're done.

Cheers!

The more control, the more that requires control. This is the road to chaos. -Frank Herbert, The Dosadi Experiment

Two points are worth noting regarding the bolstering of the US Navy in the Gulf...[..]

One, it is a continuation of an ongoing, albeit unannounced policy-Keeping the Oil pumping.

On 30 October the Pentagon led a five-day naval exercise, codenamed "Leading Edge", in the Persian Gulf involving the participation of Britain, France, Italy, Australia - and Bahrain, which hosts the US fifth fleet. There were observers from 19 other countries, including a few in the Gulf region. And this led the Pentagon to declare, falsely, that the naval manoeuvres involved 25 countries.

Two, the Bush White House is manipulating its own leaked stories about the pressure that Saudi Arabia is allegedly exerting on it by threatening to fund Sunni militias in Iraq if the Pentagon withdrew its forces from Iraq.

That the Saudi government has been in league with the Sunni tribal leaders in Iraq for a long time is an open secret. There is nothing new about this. As it is, there is no more effective way to undermine the legitimacy of the Saudi royals than to claim that they want the infidel American troops to continue their occupation of Iraq.[.]

In the US, the latest military manoeuvring by the White House is a preamble to President George W Bush rejecting the key recommendations of the Iraq Study Group co-chaired by James Baker: withdrawal of the US combat troops from Iraq by early 2008, and engaging with Iran and Syria diplomatically."

(emphasis added)