Bombing asks for retaliation

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - What was George W. Bush's real motivation for attacking Iraq last week? Was he really concerned about the safety of allied planes patrolling the no-fly zone? Perhaps he was actually concerned with something more - to cast himself in a favorable light in the eyes of military supporters. Maybe he wanted to try and ride the coattails of his father's legacy.

First and foremost, we have to consider the old adage: like father like son. Sure, George W. is his own person. He's not controlled at all by his father's influence or that of conservative politics. As analysts on CNN are fond of saying about candidates and public officials, there are no politics involved here.

Dubya's father started the war against Iraq after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. That was a decade ago. Today, the Iraqi leader has outlasted not only George Bush the senior, but also Bill Clinton. Two whole U.S. leaders later, and we still have the same problems we did 10 years ago.

But what good would it serve Dubya to go clean up the mess his father left after Operation Desert Storm? Certainly, a strength of Dubya's father was foreign policy. Despite an inability to run his own country successfully, George Bush was a player on the international scene. Perhaps little George is trying to establish credibility in his foreign policy by reviving a method that worked for his father: bomb Iraq.

Yet, times have changed, and instead of a positive reaction to this move, critics at home and abroad point out the futility in kicking dust on Saddam's well-entrenched shoes. If anything, the recent bombings are likely to cause another terrorist act against a U.S. Embassy or perhaps even against a target here in the States.

Today, Iraq is not the focus of as much international animosity as the last time we had a Bush in office. Sympathies have also changed, and bombing Iraq vilifies America in the eyes of many, especially those much-needed Arab allies who help keep many tenuous situations balanced in the Middle East.

The most dangerous consequence of attacking Iraq is not what the world will think of Americans, it is what Saddam Hussein, his allies and his compatriots will do in retaliation. George W. has endangered not only Americans, but also the British, by his random decision to bomb Iraq.

Yet for Bush and his cohorts, possible terrorist action is a consequence worth disregarding when it comes to better approval ratings. Maybe he just wants oil. Maybe, somewhere in that cocaine-addled brain, George W. thinks that by stirring up the snake-pit that is Iraq, he will be able to cause enough commotion to validate a military insertion into the country, allowing for an occupation and by virtue of occupation, control of the country's natural resources.

Once Iraqi oil falls into U.S. hands, Dubya could easily sell it back to the oil company that formerly employed his vice president, strengthening not only the U.S. economy, but also providing kick-backs to the companies that bankrolled the highly inefficient Bush campaign.

Then again, that does seem like a bit of a stretch, and despite the obvious policy genius that resides in our current president, I doubt anyone would take him for that much of a fool. Is he? Only time will tell.