Like German imperialism in the 1930's the US is looking like it is in a race against time. Bankruptcies are occuring at an unprecedented level in the periphery of capitalism, in particular in the Southern Hemisphere of the US.
In order to coerce and frighten the populations of the world into submitting into the one and only superpower nonsense that is peddled by the worlds bourgeoisie, the US is in a race to conquer the Arab world to arrest the collapse of the last remaining settler state on earth - Israel.

For this purpose is has to ensure it finds suitable land forces to invade Iraq. It is aiming to achieve this on two fronts:
a) Coerce the Kurds of Northern Iraq
b) Split Turkey

It wants NATO to basically become its armed protectorate not only as it has become in ex-Yugoslavia but also in the Middle East. The American Empire in its era of decline no longer wants to endanger its forces, but only to give orders and use proxies to fight. It has essentially become the worlds parasite with an ever weakening economic base.

Turkey has to fight elections in October on the above issues. If the pro-NATO forces win out then the war by all accounts must start. If these elections do not bring the desired result, Bush may lose time in preparing for the attack.
By all accounts a major war in the Middle East has as the aim of arresting imperialisms decline in the region, in particular after the Israeli withdrawal from the Lebanon, Saddams ousting of inspectors and the continuing of the intifada.

The achilees heel of American imperialism is its inability to have a land invasion force, similar to the problems faced by the British in the 1930's who tried using local stooges to do their bidding and fighting.
vngelis