It was immediately obvious, when escalation in Iraq was first hinted at as as the President's vaunted change of course a few weeks after the midterms, that the idea made no sense in terms of the situation on the ground in Iraq. What was not so universally agreed then, but has since become clear, is that the surge, and especially the completely unnecessary publicity and hype the surge was launched with, makes even less sense in terms of domestic politics than it does in terms of the war. What has also become obvious in the last few weeks, though also not apparent in November, is that war with Iran seems to be an integral part of whatever the administration is planning
I have argued since December that the surge was just a prelude to a war with Iran that they hoped would involve hostile acts by Iran that would restore the President to his immediate post-9/11 popularity (Surging into Iran). More recently, it has become clear that the administration needed the surge to actually get the war with Iran going (Surging into Iran: The Slow Start to Expanding the War), and not merely for the chance to appear hawkish against the national trend just before the expected Iranian retaliation would make hawkishness seem prescient instead of foolish.
As the weeks have gone by, the real motivations behind the publicly touted policies have risen closer to the surface. This makes my task simpler, as more and more people wake to the suspicion that they must be up to something behind the scenes, because what they're doing makes no sense in the terms in which they speak to the public. In this entry on Eschaton today (We Are Truly Ruled By Morons), Atrios seems puzzled at what the Republicans are up to. The following is my answer, an approach to the question from an angle that allows my presentation of what I have been saying since December to be more direct.
I don't think that they would stage another 9/11, but they've painted themselves into a corner in which the only thing that could save them would be another 9/11. Bush's approval had declined to the 40s from his immediate post-inauguration 60s just prior to 9/11. It zoomed up to the 90s right after 9/11, and has gradually, but steadily, declined since. Early on, they could spike the approval numbers back up temporarily when needed, with Orange Alerts, hyped up "terrorist plots", Presidential speeches announcing new initiatives, and, most effectively, invading Afghanistan and then Iraq. But the ability of these ploys to cash in on 9/11 has also disappeared, because, along the way, using these ploys so often, and in so transparently manipulative a manner, has destroyed their credibility.
The only sense the surge makes is if they know that another 9/11 is coming, or at least know that Bush will do his level best in the near future to make another 9/11 happen. The surge, and especially the great hype surrounding the surge, has been the latest grand Presidential initiative, but they launched it after it was already obvious that banking this sort of ploy off of 9/11 no longer worked. They must be counting on banking the surge off of a future 9/11. They accept the flak now for supporting something that now looks foolish and bull-headed to most of the electorate, but which another 9/11 will make look firm and prescient, positively Churchillian.
The obvious candidate right now for the second 9/11 would be the retaliation from Iran for whatever they plan to do to Iran. It won't matter if the Iranians do back to us only a fraction of what we do to them first. Any significant hit against the US itself will destroy whatever objectivity and sense of proportion the electorate might have in these matters.
The only way to prevent this criminal administration from snatching victory from the jaws of richly deserved defeat, is to prevent the war with Iran. And the only way to prevent the war, is to convince the electorate of the criminality of this administration. The people are already convinced that the administration is lying and manipulative. There must be no let up, no holding back in the vain and lazy hope that the administration is destroying itself, so no need to risk appearing shrill and extreme. The administration's push for war with Iran cannot be allowed to be characterized as merely foolish and mistaken, true as those characterizations would be if their intentions in seeking this war were honestly and honorably to fight terrorism, however mistaken they might be that war with Iran would serve as a useful means to that end. However much they may agree that war with Iran would be foolish, enough of the generals will defer to the Commander in Chief, and follow the orders that will get the war started, if the controversy over starting the war with Iran is allowed to remain merely a difference in judgment over the wisdom of this war. Only if it is clear that there is a significant body of opinion in the country that Bush is planning war solely to provoke another 9/11, so that he can use the crisis for the political end of restoring his party to power, will the generals understand that the fate of Admiral Raeder could be theirs if they collaborate in this criminal enterprise. With rare exceptions (Major General Miller springs to mind), the generals seem to be honest and honorable, trapped into at least tacit support of Bush policies they know to be wrongheaded if not plain wrong, by their loyalty to institutions that they fear would go even more wrong were they to resign on principal, and because of that not be in a position to minimize the damage. We must turn this dynamic around, and use this loyalty to make them hold the President to the letter of the requirement for a declaration of war before they will commit acts of war, for fear of taking the military institutions that they love over a cliff should they continue to give this Commander in Chief a blank check on pushing the envelope of his claimed independent authority, and his latest mad adventure be eventually judged a criminal enterprise.