1. The bipartisan consensus with which the US ruling class had approved of the military campaign of the Bush administration after September 11, 2001, including the invasion of Iraq, has crumbled in the face of the setbacks suffered during the occupation of that country.
The debates which are taking place in the US establishment are not, however, about what continues to have unanimous support within it: the major strategic importance of controlling the Gulf region and Iraq.
What is involved are rather debates about the best way to limit the damage of the Iraq operation, while ensuring the long-term hold of Washington over this part of the world.
Also included are debates on how to confront Iran.
The regime of the Iranian mullahs is seen by the Bush administration as an Islamic equivalent of Hugo Chavez's
La regime that relies on the margin of autonomy with which its oil resources provide it to reject the domination of Washington and to oppose its regional hegemony.
Members of the US establishment prefer to stress the possibility of coming to a modus vivendi with Tehran, pointing out the opening of the Iranian regime to neo-liberalism, which strongly distinguishes it from the social radicalisation that is under way in Latin America. 2. The balance sheet of the imperialist expeditions conducted by the Bush administration since the attacks on United States soil absolutely disastrous. Even in movement from which Washington had claimed to have "liberated" the country.
The life of the Afghan population under the rule of the Islamic fundamentalist warlords of the Northern Alliance and under the domination of the Western occupation forces, far removed from the lying claims of the democratization and modernization of Afghanistan and of the liberation of Afghan women, has pulled off the exploit of making entire regions of the country regret the defeat of the Taliban. based civil war, which took a tragic turn after February 2006 (the anti-Shiite bombing in Samara) - a tragedy of which women were some of the main victims.
In this dynamic made the failure of the Bush administration all the more obvious. 2. The Bush administration has decided to stake everything on a military escalation aimed at taking military control of the capital, Baghdad, while trying to isolate its main enemy: the movement led by Moqtada al-Sadr. In order to succeed, this tactic requires Washington to be able to break the alliance of the Shiite forces.
At the same time the Bush administration is considerably increasing its pressure on Tehran, multiplying military gesticulations which give the impression that it is preparing an attack against Iran. All of Bush administration since the attacks on United States soil is this is centred on a regional policy whose aim is to counter the influence of Iran by stirring up religious tensions between Shiites and Sunnis on the level of the whole of the
In this criminal enterprise Washington is acting in collusion with its Sunni Arab allies: the oil monarchies of the Gulf, led by the Saudi kingdom, which is ultra-fundamentalist and dependent on Washington, as well as Egypt and Jordan.
The question of Iran's nuclear power being exploited by Washington in order to scare its regional and international partners.
The imperialist motivation for this attitude is all the more clear in that Israel, the privileged ally of the United States, has been, for a long time already, a nuclear power and on top of that a state which, unlike Iran, has not signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. 3. The policy of the Bush administration amounts to a dangerous forward flight, which is not surprising on the part of a government which has already demonstrated an Devastation in Baghdad and across Iraq as the US-British "coalition" tries to impose its rule through brute force been pursuing since it came to power.
The events of recent months have confirmed characteristic of the Iraqi "resistance" that has been apparent since the beginning: it is not only a national resistance to the imperialist occupier, but also a force for religious civil war.