Yes, Things Can Get Worse . . .

Kevin Drum:

"Conventional wisdom tacitly assumes that the worst that can happen in Iraq is a continuation of the current low-level civil war, resulting in the loss of thousands of Iraqi lives and dozens of U.S. soldiers each month. But as bad as that is, it's worth keeping in mind that the American occupation has actually made the Iraqi situation worse every single year since it began, and will probably continue to make things worse as long as we're there. And the worse the violence, the worse the Iraqi theocracy that eventually takes root in its wake is likely to be.

But that's not all. The dynamics of violence are nonlinear in the extreme, and the odds of an Archduke Ferdinand moment continue to rise inexorably as our occupation continues to make things ever worse and ever more unstable. "

The mid-term election result is really just part of the setup -- a semi-hopeful part -- of the Coming Perfect Storm. The Storm, itself, is yet to hit us, believe it or not.

Bush has been a catastrophically bad President. His policies will have disastrous consequences. The only question considered on this blog is whether the disastrous consequences of those policies will soon form the kind of political theatre, the political drama, which results in "regime change".

Bush and the Republican Right are desperately trying to find some way to blame the outcome of the Iraq War on Democrats. That's the political theatre, which the Republican Right is trying to create.

Meanwhile, events in Iraq, continue to progress, with little interference from Bush or the U.S., because Bush is too big a moron to even realize that controlling the evolution of Iraq and the Middle East is what U.S. policy should be about, not just controlling the media narrative on Fox News and the editorial page of the Washington Post.

Bush has no policy in Iraq, beyond staying, and no goal other than to escape blame.

Unfortunately, for the U.S., others have deeper interests, and the conflicts over those interests are outside the control of the U.S. The chances that Bush is going to be able to simply muddle thru 2 additional years of accomplishing nothing in Iraq has become vanishingly small. And, the chances that events in Iraq will drive a rising political storm in the U.S. are increasing from possible toward probable.