Bush's victory and consequences

As I predicted President Bush won the election, but by a larger margin than
expected. I think this is partly the fault of the liberal bias in the press
that presented Kerry's challenge as more effective than it was. My rationale
was that more American voters, (i) recognized the danger of international
terrorism after 9/11, and (ii) seeing that Bush had done a good job in
combating it, and (iii) realizing that the US cannot withdraw from Iraq
under present circumstances without a great loss of credibility, whatever
the merit of the reasons for going in there in the first place, decided to
stick with the incumbent.
What was strange, but perhaps predictable, was that American Jews did not
vote primarily on this issue, but rather on the Democratic platform of
social, economic and human rights issues. In a way this is a typical Jewish
attitude, pretending that all is OK and that we can afford to help support
the poor workers and oppose the Patriot Act, etc. etc. Liberal bias by an
overwhelmingly affluent and pacifist group that doesn't like conflict and so
prefers to pretend it doesn't exist. American Jews are too good and too
intelligent to vote for that "idiot" Bush. Talk about self-defeating, they
voted 3:1 for Kerry, roughly the same as the French would have done. Now
there's a scary thought!
Now that he is a last-termer (or "lame duck" as they like to call it), Bush
can do more or less anything he wants. But, he is likely to consider his
success a mandate to continue as before. He will re-double his efforts to
"win" in Iraq and try to introduce democracy and stability there. This will
mean a major attack on Fallujah, the center of the insurgency, as well as on
several other cities in the Sunni triangle. For now it seems the Shi'ites
are quiescent, Sadr's militias having been more or less defeated in Najjaf
and Sadr City.
Now that Afghanistan has a legally elected pro-American government, and Iraq
will have elections in January, the focus will likely shift to Iran. Note
that Iran is surrounded by US forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Gulf.
Although the Mullahs apparently think that US forces are stretched too thin,
they must have an uncomfortable feeling looking in any direction. I think
that this will be the main foreign policy aim of the Bush Administration's
second term (W2), namely the blocking and defeat of the Islamist Government
in Iran. This is a significantly more difficult task than either
Afghanistan or Iraq, but the US is now poised to pursue it.
Iran's mullahs have emphatically announced their right to develop enriched
uranium (for peaceful purposes!) against their international agreements.
Neither the EU's quiet diplomacy nor the US working thru the IAEC have had
any influence on them. Therefore, either the US must take stronger action,
or it will be left to Israel to do so.
A lot depends on whether or not Bush decides to give free reign to the
Neo-cons on his staff, or as the Europeans, Arabs and Democrats wish, he
would curb them and preferably get rid of them. Now the former is likely to
happen, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleeza Rice and Secty of Defense Rumsfeld will
probably be in the ascendancy, while Secty of State Powell will either be
replaced (by one of them) or be sidelined. If that happens look for a firmer
line on Iran and N. Korea.
It's true that the attack on 9/11 made international terrorism the main
threat to US and Western interests. But, it also gave the green light for
Bush to take action against the "axis of evil." Having rid the world of the
Taliban and Saddam Hussein, look for the other members of the axis to be
next.