The generals are worried. They can't find responsible political leadership in the United States with a search party. As a result, they don't know how to stop the commander-in-chief from ordering the military to undertake extraordinarily dangerous, counterproductive, and useless actions. These include supporting Sunnis against Shiites, in a doomed effort to curtail Iranian influence in the country (using the term loosely) of Iraq, establishing a string of armed camps in Iraq that like Gitmo Bay and West Berlin are to be defended by Americans forever, and conducting air assaults on the innumerable enemies that Iraq will spew up against Americans forever. Most important, the military understands that plans to bomb and to invade Iran exist, are debated, and might be put into effect. As an institution, the military recalls that Nixon and Kissinger expanded the Vietnam War into Cambodia, escalated the bombing, triggered the deaths of millions in the region and tens of thousands of Americans, and nonetheless by 1975 South Vietnam had fallen. Moreover, nothing terrible happened to American interests as a result, and today Vietnam is, like China, a capitalist authoritarian society that eagerly seeks Western investment. The American military, however, needed the better part of 20 years to recover from Vietnam. They do not want to repeat that history.

Now the military believes that Karl Rove and Condi Rice, like Nixon and Kissinger, may seek a wider war. They believe Mr. Rove may well argue for an attack on Iran, if he thinks it will help the Republicans hold the House and Senate. And they believe that what Mr. Rove wants the President to order, he will get the President to order. Nor do they think that anyone with the acumen or courage to disagree can be found in the State Department, the CIA, or the Vice President's office.

From the military's perspective, the Democrats cannot be counted on to oppose the attack on Iran. Instead Democrats will criticize the tactics, but not the mad strategy, just as most of the Democrats in Congress continue to do with respect to Iraq. Yet the military knows that air attacks on Iran will fail to accomplish any useful goal, and instead may trigger an expanded ground war in the Middle East as well as a global reign of terror. What if in response Iran were to invade Iraq? What if revolution were to rock Jordan, SA, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Egypt? What if Iraqis united only in the one aim of ousting the Americans? The military has minds who think ahead, who plan for contingency, and who know there are limits of extended power, even for the most powerful armed forces in the history of humanity. The military knows too that the Commander-in-Chief doesn't think their way.

Rumsfeld is the President's heat shield, surrogate, protector. The generals don't like him, but that is not the reason he is drawing their wrath at present. He is taking the military's criticism now because the generals don't know a better way to protect the country from the decisions they fear might emanate from the White House.