I'm in another interesting discussion at Centerfield. I've blogger about some of this already.

Well, there is the question of whether Bush made the situation batter or worse. Unless you claim there is no probability that anything America does can either increase or decrease support for Al Qaeda and the availability of supplies and trained personnel, we must ask if Bush has made it more likely and likely to happen sooner or less likely and likely to happen later. I believe the former - as much because he lead us to believe the aftermath of the war would not require sacrifice on our part as because of the war in the first place. I believe with a great national effort we can make Iraq work, but I'm not certain, and I believe the same effort could have done more with more certainty if we hadn't invaded Iraq. This is my response to both anonymous's question about why I think Bush is blameworth, and William Swann's question about what I mean by doing what Bush is doing. What Bush is doing, as opposed to what he has done, is pretending we can rebuild Iraq cheaply without sacrificing.

Anonymous's comment about the whole world being motivated to support the dollar is a very good one. Remember how many years the stock bubble remained after reasonable pointed out valuations were absurd? Even now countries are buying dollars - and not all of Bush's spending has kicked in yet. Do you think the world can and will support dollars no matter what we do, or do you think there is a limit but we are in no danger of crossing it? If the latter, when you don't know where the edge is in the dark better to stay well away from the cliff.

John Kay wanted evidence either of these is likely, but many besides me do see dangers of both in the future. The dollar is falling, and Bush's spending bills haven't all kicked in, and he has plans for the future. I'm going to start blogging more on the economy I think, and I have some thinks to Warren Buffet and others who have expressed concern - I'll try and keep my links to Krugmen to a minimum to make John Kay happy, although he is a professional economist, and even economists who don't respect his opinions on other things respect them on economics. Do you really see no danger that nuclear proliferation is making it easier for terrorists to get nuclear weapons?

William Swann also has a good point about how Dean hasn't been talking about all the hard things we need to do to make Iraq work. I'm not even saying that doesn't worry me. But he has pointed out we can't afford the tax cuts, not even for middle class democratic voters, and we will need that money to rebuild Iraq. Lieberman has only spoken about how unrealistic the draw down of troops is I believe - no presidential candidate has talked about how much we must increase our efforts.