Bush faces terrible choices

Bush is caught in an iron triangle of competing imperatives. He wants a quick war, with minimum coalition casualties and minimum Iraqi casualties. As long as Iraq's army keeps fighting as it has this week, he cannot have all three. Either the war will be slow, or it will be bloody for one side or both. If the Iraqi forces fight very well, it is just possible that the war might be all three.

One week's sustained resistance by Iraq's soldiers is surprising enough. For them to keep it up for months against a really determined US assault would be almost unthinkable.

A US-occupied Iraq could become like Afghanistan under Soviet occupation, a focus for Arab and Islamic resentment of the West, and a magnet for violent fundamentalists.

I wonder what Osama bin Laden is thinking?