{ WarBlog 28.3.03 }

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday March 28, 2003 13:59 by warblogger

Feel free to add your own links and representative portions of news stories you find on the net....

Practice to Deceive:
Chaos in the Middle East is not the Bush hawks' nightmare scenario--it's their plan.

By Joshua Micah Marshall

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0304.marshall.html

''Like any group of permanent Washington revolutionaries fueled by visions of a righteous cause, the neocons long ago decided that criticism from the establishment isn't a reason for self-doubt but the surest sign that they're on the right track. But their confidence also comes from the curious fact that much of what could go awry with their plan will also serve to advance it. A full-scale confrontation between the United States and political Islam, they believe, is inevitable, so why not have it now, on our terms, rather than later, on theirs? Actually, there are plenty of good reasons not to purposely provoke a series of crises in the Middle East. But that's what the hawks are setting in motion, partly on the theory that the worse things get, the more their approach becomes the only plausible solution. ''