It would be tragic if Congress went along with the the White House without hearings and a ban on any warlike acts against Iran until all the charges can be investigated fully! We've been down this road before with devastating results. All the president's claims were lies last time, it's unlikely they will they be different this time.

If it turns out that these new ugly incitements to war are as false this time as the last, the war criminals in the Executive Office should be arrested and sent to the Hague for trial. They are responsible for the deaths of over 1 million innocent Iraqis and the forced migration of four million. That is genocide and ethnic cleansing. Iran is bigger and better armed than Iraq...it has not attacked us, and we have no claim to her land or mineral wealth. It is time to remove this Caeser of ours from high office. That will be a true Patriot Act.

Luise Light, Ed.D.

Bellows Falls, VT

Isn't it obvious that the only reality here is Karl Rove and the Republicans need to win another 4 (8, 12, 16, 20) years of Pennsylvania Power?

While Joe is totally right in all his rational arguments against US military action in Iran, the Republicans don't care about reason, they only care about winning in '08.

Dubya's crummy polls and the meltdown of the Republican hegemony in congress have got the right-wingers scared. The politicos are thinking that if it takes a few thousand American lives and the threat of terrorism and higher prices at the pump to keep the voting public from going Democratic, hey, isn't it worth it.

The Republicans have a vision for this country. Think Stalin, Goebbels, Pol Pot. Let's not spoil it by thinking when we vote.

It would surprise me if Bush, Cheney and the Repubs didn't attack Iran or at least engage in rhetoric that will keep the Iran issue 'on the boil' and therefore at the forefront of Americans thoughts. Why, because it is more of the same old fear mongering, hate mongering, war mongering that they use to stay in power. Keep the American voter afraid and the voter will vote Bush/Repub toadies in office yet again.

How do we know Rove and the Repubs will do this, because they said so, loud and clear is the Repub campaign strategy to win elections in 2006. How much more clear and obvious can they be. This rhetorical brinksmanship between our crazy pols and Irans crazy pols will continue through the 2006 election.

Shortly after the 2006 election our crazy pols will attack Iran no matter which party gains control of the House. Attacking Iran before the election may cause the voters to turn the Repubs out and they surely don't want that. Should the Dems gain control of the House the Bush cabal will move to immediately attack Iran before the Dems can start hearings and investigations of Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Gonzales, Rice, Ashcroft, Powell, radical right wing religious fundamentalists et. al.

So I will be watching for the attack on Iran to occur immediately after the elections.

Those who say that Bush will not attack Iran and give lots of very neat logical reasons why are forgetting that Bush&Co do not follow ordinary sensible logic. They just really have their own private/personal agenda for doing what they do. Hence their endless secrecy in all that they do. Those blind, lock step, knee jerk, 'Stepford Republican voters' will vote Repub no matter what the Bush/Repub agenda is and no matter what happens to America, American democracy, traditional American values or the people of the middle east. Polarizing and politicizing is what the Bushies are all about.

I pray that God will intervene and stop the Bushie/christian fundamentalist coalition rapturists before they can make dead-enders of all of us. We can only hope that by some strange turn of events they may become enlightened(not likely) or just annihilate themselves(equally not likely). The Creator did give us free will and this crew of crazies aka 'The Totalitarian Republican Theocracy', to quote myself, seems devoted to the destruction of true christian values and possibly the entire human race.

Possibily Bush is not the anti-christ but only one of many in 'The Totalitarian Republican Theocracy'. What will they think if they find out that their interpertation of the biblical end times is completely of their own making and has nothing to do with God's plan for armageddon. But since they know the mind of God... or so they claim.

Iran supplies 10% of the world's oil. It is a fairly safe assumption that, were we to attack Iran, they would cut off their oil from the market. They can afford to do so for an appreciable time without hurting themselves financially. They don't need us, but we need them - and they know it.

There is no longer a 'cushion' of extra oil production possible that can be called upon to even temporarily offset such a loss to the world market. (and to our oil-guzzling lifestyle here) The world is pumping oil at close to a peak rate which cannot be substantially increased. Look back at Katrina for a taste of what will happen here when crucial oil/production is reduced or disrupted for more than a week or so by terrorism, weather, deliberate action, etc. It won't just be gas for your car - anything that has oil in its production or supply chain (which is almost everything) will jump in price within a short span of time.

We want to invite this definite, guaranteed hell by attacking Iran over some murky possible threat at some foggy future point? Absurd. Bush and his Preemptive War Fascist Freak Show are dragging us to doom a lot quicker than the peak oil and global warming disasters to come would have done otherwise.

We will not only be crippled by peak oil and climate change - but we will also be broke, and venomously hated worldwide. Wonderful.

(We are obviously using the 'fight wmd, terrorism and tyranny/march of democracy' propaganda as a smokescreen to ensure unfettered, unlimited access to the dwindling world supplies of oil - oil which isn't ours to begin with - an 'ownership society' fact that many Americans don't seem to grasp)

We cannot attack Iran legally without Security Council approval, and it is almost certain that we wouldn't get it. Once again America would act as a rogue state, probably dragging a few thumbscrewed allies like England along for appearance's sake.

This action would have many far-reaching and as yet unforeseen negative consequences. After the Iraq debacle, Katrina, torture, secret prisons, secret spying on citizens, etc., how could anyone believe or trust Bush and his cronies about anything - let alone something this weighty?

A far better and very dependable yardstick has become apparent in the last several years - if Bush thinks something a good idea, it is a BAD IDEA.