Although it would be extremely crass to bet on such a thing, one can't help but wonder what the Las Vegas bookmakers make of continuing war in Iraq. We all must be curious as to what the state of the occupation will be - say, around November second, 2004. It would be an understatement to suggest that Iraq will be a huge factor in Bush's re-election bid.

Things might look less than ideal for President Bush, what with all the recent blows to his administration's credibility. Forgetting, for the moment, all of our domestic problems, the aftermath of the war hasn't been an easy time for anybody, let alone the White House.

Some of challenges which our President faces right now don't seem too bad, in and of themselves. We can deal with rising anti-American sentiment -- Americans don't generally trust foreigners, anyway. The possible mishandling of homeland security doesn't seem to play well in the press, so it's not likely that the great American public will worry about it anymore than they have in the past (until the next tragedy occurs at least). While some die-hard Americans are against many police-state policies, they're usually seen as unpatriotic loons with something to hide and therefore, generally, ignored.

There are of course the intelligence lapses that occurred before September 11th. But even this, horrific as it might be, is portrayed in the media as being more "unfortunate" than downright "imbecilic".

As stated above, none of these things on their own would be much of a threat to Bush's chances for a second term; however, considered as a whole, they don't paint a pretty picture. And there is, of course, one more thing to consider. A very big thing indeed.

The war in Iraq can be seen a lot of ways: A glorious military victory - or an imperialistic nightmare; or a humanitarian crisis of our making; or, even a foreign policy mistake of Carterian proportions. But perhaps the most interesting perspective is that the Iraq war was a terrible failure of expectation management.

It's easy to see that the Administration was in a bit of a pickle. They wanted to go to war in Iraq (certain members were pushing for an attack in Iraq even before September 11th), but they needed to justify it and, more importantly, they needed to get the American public to go along with it. So, the hype machine kicked in, just as it would have done with any other summer blockbuster.

However, like with any other summer blockbuster, the hype didn't pan out. There weren't any weapons. Worse yet, the Bush administration has yet to come up with a better retort to this unfortunate fact than, "Well, come on! He was a bad person. That's reason enough, isn't it?" Of course, apt students will quickly see that if it indeed was reason enough, the administration wouldn't have had to go to all that trouble of inserting dubious intelligence into the State of the Union address, or sending Secretary Powell to the UN with a kick-ass PowerPoint presentation.

"WMD-gate," (as it's bound to be called) is a no-win game for Bush. At best, it signals a dismal failure in American intelligence gathering; something which is already a sore point, considering the information coming to light about 9/11. At worst, it was a deliberate attempt to mislead the public (although, this possibility doesn't seem to be something that Americans take seriously. Bush isn't sweating over this quite as much as Tony Blair is).

Either way, this is something that a brave Democratic candidate would be sure to use against Mr. Bush next year. Fortunately for the President, Democrats don't seem to have the courage to press this issue.

What the Administration needs is some good news from Iraq. Public expectations were high - a lot of people thought that we'd be seeing footage of Marines tromping through chemical weapons labs in biohazard suits. That didn't happen, and some officials came right out and said that it's not only unlikely that we'll find any weapons, but also the evidence of weapons of mass destruction.

Administration officials also said, at the beginning of the war, that America wasn't going to be drawn in to a quagmire - ut-uh, not this time, no sir. Recently, however, the new commander of military forces in Iraq actually used the term, "guerilla warfare," at a press conference. While the Administration might have met its own goals, it's clear the expectations of the public haven't quite materialized.

This isn't to say that Bush can't win in November, 2004. He's still got a remarkably good chance, in fact. But that might change if American soldiers are still dying in Iraq next year; and no one knows what new information about American intelligence tomorrow's news cycle might bring.

Still, this whole conflict is something that Bush was convinced he had to undertake. It would be terribly disingenuous to question his motives - he really seems to believe he's doing the right thing. The only quibble we all might have, which might lead to his losing the presidency, is with the fact that he hasn't delivered exactly what he promised.

-B. C. Silvia