I've recently been trying to make sense of the events happening in our government and the world - everything from our divided electorate with suspicions of voting irregularities to the war in Iraq to the choices that our President is making in shaping his new cabinet and setting policy directions.

I see a worsening American mission in Iraq, and in the last few days I've heard news outlets starting to report sharpened rhetoric about the threat posed by Iran and its nuclear ambitions, including allegations of Iranian support for plots to assassinate Paul Bremer in Iraq, Iranian plans to modify existing missiles to function as nuclear launch platforms, and Iranian gas centrifuges for Uranium enrichment.

The question I have is, why, given that we are so bogged down in Iraq (both financially and in terms of our force structure), would we be laying the groundwork for military intervention in Iran?  I mean, we couldn't possibly take action against Iraq, not without resorting to a military draft and spending a whole lot more money.  

Then I notice that we're raising the ceiling on our national debt by $800 billion.  Sure, I know that this action was necessary to cover existing spending, given that the President's deep tax cuts are now likely to become permanent, but hmmmm....

And no one has the stomach to re-institute the draft, right?  With Iraq War approval ratings heading south of 50% the President can't risk it.

Then I started considering other recent events.

The President's decision to tap Condoleeza Rice as Secretary of State, the reshaping (purging) of the CIA under new Director Porter Goss, the appointment of Alberto Gonzales to be Attorney General...

What if the President has already started shaping a broader policy of military intervention in the Middle East, and what if this policy involves military alignment with the Russian Federation?

Vladimir Putin has gone out of his way to support President Bush on Iraq after initially opposing the intervention, even going so far as to establish a moral authority for US action.  In the aftermath of the tragedy in Beslan, Putin has pursued policies that would grant his government more autonomy with military options to fight terrorism.

If Russia were to agree to cooperate in military intervention in the Middle East, the burden on the Bush Administration would diminish greatly, and dissent in this country might lessen as well.  

Russia might not be able to directly act against Iran, but their forces could intervene in security operations in Iraq, freeing up American military resources to focus on Iran and/or Syria.

Putin, in turn, could use a greater involvement in the war on terrorism to solidify his hard-line security positions, and possibly justify continued government involvement in private Russian enterprises, like the Russian oil industry.

Under such a presumption, Condoleeza Rice as Secretary of State makes a great deal of sense.  As National Security Advisor, she was instrumental in architecting the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq.  Her background in Soviet and Eastern European studies would make her a perfect diplomatic conduit for a Russian-US military alliance.

If the President was planning additional military involvement in the Middle East, particularly if it was in concert with Russia, he would need greater control over the CIA.  Most of the long-time CIA leaders would have been molded in Cold War thinking.  They might be very opposed to US/Russian security cooperation.  Could this be another reason for the Porter Goss purges?

If this hypothesis proved true, the President would also need the greatest cooperation from the Justice Department - witness the installation of close personal friend and confidant Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General.

The President would certainly need a "mandate" for such a policy direction, one reason for the continued talking-point emphasis on "mandate" coming out of the election.

I'm not trying to be conspiratorial here, just trying to make sense of all the Iran sabre-rattling in light of other realities.  I hope some of you can tell me that this is nonsense, because if the President is thinking of letting a genie like this out of the bottle, I can see events getting out of hand quickly.