Junglejim, You hit the nail on the head with this one.

In the US the media glosses over the fact that the "tribes" in these areas have been at ethnic-war since the Stone Age. Without some form of social engineering, the situation will remain Hatfield/McCoy ad infinitum.

What is never seen outside the DC beltway are the K Street lobbyists in action. Knowing who influences whom and for what reason is kept behind closed doors, and voters are like the proverbial mushroom. No one in the 100-Club is not affected to some degree, and the House of Reps is no better.

As far as the UN goes, there will be no condemnation or sanction - Russia is on the Security Council and has veto power over such measures.

So, it would seem that a candidate's approach to Iraq is representative of the candidate's probable approach to other situations of conflict. That brings us back to whether appeasement in kind, isolationism to some degree, steadfastness to threats - all with its primary concern being the National Security (versus lobbyist interest).

Quite a conundrum!

I must believe that Sen. Biden painted an inaccurate picture with his "For the last seven years, this administration has failed to face ..." comment. The Clinton treasury surplus occurred because of massive cuts in the intelligence and military budgets - resulting in greatly reduced collection and analysis, weapons system maintenance and replacement, personnel training and the like. The Bush administration DID recognize the threats, but its capacity that was inherited to address them was woefully inadequate to the situation. It's easy to disrupt intelligence operations and military preparedness, but very expensive and time-consuming to rebuild to close-to-comparable levels after the slicing. The same thing happened after each World War, Korea, Vietnam and Gulf I - we just never learn....