"There are no options in Iraq because the US has traumatized
the entire nation..."

...another part of the article describing the US crises brought on
by its defeat in Iraq. Will President Bush, cornered by his own
incompetence and short-sightedness in Iraq, lash out at Iran to
divert attention away from his own failings, thereby contributing
to the gathering global financial/political crises?

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HK29Aa02.html
(Gabriel Kolko is a leading historian of modern warfare.)

Repentance or rapture?
" Above all, in Iraq the US government is confronting the failure of
its entire Middle East project, an illusion in which the Israelis have
a profound interest. Bush and gang are in a state of denial, but the
US is going the way of its defeat in Korea and Vietnam, and its
military is increasingly overstretched and demoralized. It has based
its foreign policies on fantasies and non-existent dangers, neo-con
dreams and desires, only partially to meet equally illusory Israeli
objectives to transform the entire Middle East so that it accepts
Israel in whatever form the fickle Israeli electorate presents it.