There is good cause for alarm over the broad agenda of the seemingly triumphant war and terrorism party in control of the White House and now the Congress. Alarm, yes; despair, no.

The Bush Administration is basically the same collection of folks that populated the Reagan/Bush White House throughout the 1980s. Once again in command of the machinery of government, they have to work harder and spend more money to maintain control now than they did then. The plethora of reactionary Bush II initiatives are not the triumphant imposition of some master plan. They're largely efforts at turning black the clock, trying to undo things that have already been done, from Kyoto to the World Court. They're fighting a holding action against the future, almost singlehandedly against the world. And if they are too reckless with their crusade, they'll damage the very system they are trying to maintain. They are certainly strident, and well armed, but history isn't on their side.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the USA found itself holding the title of "sole superpower." But the world is too big for one lonely superpower to maintain control all by itself. Without the bipolar chess game to keep each side's allies and client states on message, now everyone has their own international ideas. And without two rival superpowers harnessing and channeling their energies in the great game, Islamic jihadis and their supporters are free to pursue their own agenda of ejecting the Western powers from their lands.

We worry that Bush & Co. are preparing a war of conquest. But not so long ago we were led to believe the USA already ruled supreme. The war on terrorism and the sudden US interventions everywhere are not the final touches on empire but a bid to keep the empire from unravelling further.

And it's not just the normal decay of empire that the Bush administration is fighting. From Osama to Sadaam, the key threats seen by the administration are mainly their own creations from the Reagan/Bush era. They're not trying to take over the world, or even the Persian Gulf. They've got their hands full trying to get free of their own Frankenstein monsters.

The increasingly restive political situation in the Mideast presents a danger to the oil supply. The US, as the world's chief consumer of oil, and with an already unstable economy, is particularly vulnerable. In a nation where status itself requires burning more gasoline than the next guy, US politicians are attuned to petroleum's importance to their career prospects.

Faced with such a large array of domestic and international difficulties, and armed with a powerful asset like the US military, it's not surprising that the Bush administration opts for the least imaginative option--armed intervention.

A successful conquest of Iraq would give the US a freer hand to establish military bases in the Persian Gulf. Iraqi oil as well would provide a backup to the increasingly precarious US presence in Saudi Arabia. Regime change in Iraq is seen by administration hawks as the key to protecting the US oil supply into the foreseeable future, and the key to expanding US power in the oil rich region.

A US invasion of Iraq could be successful if the administration can assemble a broad enough coalition to support its action, and if the country is quickly pacified and oil supplies aren't disrupted and if some other concurrent calamity somewhere else, like in India/Pakistan or Israel/Palestine, doesn't expand the conflict.

But in the end, a success in Iraq would just be finally cleaning up a decade's worth of already bad business. It doesn't touch the War on Terrorism, not to mention the real problems of the economy and the rampant ambivalence of the US population.

The Bush administration doesn't have any program, beyond bullying, for addressing the real political and economic changes occurring in the world, from the landslide election of Brazil's first leftist president in decades to the growing economic and political assertiveness of third world nations in general.

The Bush/Aschroft/Ridge homeland defense effort has damaged many people's lives already, and yet it hasn't done anything to make anyone, except perhaps Bush, Ashcroft and Ridge, safer from terrorism. The jails are full of innocent people, while, judging from the continuing threat alerts, the real terror cells are still roaming loose. Guantanamo is populated by Taliban conscripts while the actual terrorist masterminds have mostly escaped. There is a lot of sinister activity afoot in our government, but it is not the work of sinister genius.

The Bush administration is succeeding because it is carrying out the indifferent wishes of the US public. The US population acquiesces to the war on civil liberties and an Iraq invasion not because we agree with the means, but we rely on the ends. At some point the debate simply stops--before our whole petroleum based way of life is implicated. It's not just the oil companies, it's their customers, too. That's why even a lot of Democrats voted for an Iraq war; the alternative is too painful to discuss.

It is the least imaginative way things could be. The trouble is, all the solutions that lead away from war require changing away from our petroleum economy. That seems impossible, but it is going to be increasingly necessary within the next couple of decades. More than mere political change, stopping the war means changing our lifestyle.

America has never been a conservative country. As the original revolutionary country it was developed, for all its faults, by people seeking to leave tyranny behind and strike out for something new. Muted as it is in our current demoralized state, that tradition still runs deep in the American spirit. America is ready for a new vision, but it needs to be truly visionary.

Bush isn't in office through any deep resonance with America, but simply for the indifference of alternatives. Like they say, another world is possible, more important, another world is necessary. And with civil society asserting itself all over the planet, with the institutions of control faltering, with brute force the last option in the old order's tool kit, a new world is underway. It is certainly not the time for toning down any messages, or seeking to satisfy what the electorate seems resigned to accept. It's time to challenge America, and that means first of all, challenging ourselves and our usual ideas about power, and who has it.

There's no question that even in failing, the Bush Cartel can inflict widespread suffering. They have inertia on their side. But that's the way it has always been. We were already in desperate straits before Bush took the White House. The Bush administration is neither our biggest problem nor our biggest obstacle. We shouldn't let worry over their agenda become our biggest distraction.