It has come down to a monthly body count if you're American. A daily body count if you're Iraqi. 

126 US troops killed in January! 88 in May! 45 in June so far! 25,000 Iraqis! 58 Iraqis on June 15 alone! Exploding autos! Suicide bombers! Americans hardly blink anymore. Ho hum. It's just the price of "freedom." 

But usually when you pay such high prices, you come back from the shops with something to show for it. 

What's America got in its shopping bag? 

Oil, or at least bargain-basement oil prices, was what neocons promised initially. But now, cheap oil is a pipe dream. Literally. Because insurgents are blowing up the pipes! And expatriate "contractors" in Iraq aren't building or re-building anything, but are instead heavily armed and armored mercenaries paid to guard the guardians of "freedom"! 

What's the US bought in Iraq? A piece of real estate - what bits of it the US can actually control. And on most days, this doesn't even include the road to Baghdad's airport! 

And how to develop our new real estate purchase? Neocons and their influential Israeli spouses, now tell us that Iraq will make a nice base from which to launch that Pentagon plan, described by former US general and presidential candidate Wesley Clark in his book, as "Seven Middle East countries in Five Years." 

"Don't forget the shopping list, honey!" trill the Israeli spouses as neocons head out to Capitol Hill. Hmmmm, let's see: Afghanistan, Iraq. That's two down...well, sort of down, being that even Afghanistan is now re-exploding in fury. So that leaves five Middle East states to go. More or less. Whatever conquering a nation has come to mean these days. 

Iran was next on the neocon shopping list. But those Persians have proved so wily! Instead of gassing up their tanks and parading goose-stepping battalions around Martyr's Square, the Iranians opted to develop an "atomic energy for peace" program. And why not? This slogan enabled US President Eisenhower to make America the foremost nuclear power on the planet. Moreover, it could not have escaped Iran's notice that the US huffs and puffs at North Korea, but has so far failed to blow even one house there in. Not by the hair of Kim Jung Il's chinny chin chin. 

So Iran has gone shopping and now proudly owns a nice new nuclear reactor, designed and built in such a way to make Israeli sabotage difficult and costly! And being savvy shoppers themselves, the Israelis have now decided to let the US make their bargain for them. 

What's the price of bombing, invading, and occupying Iran? Rather incalculable. 

Neocons and their Israeli spouses trying to whip American shoppers into a buying frenzy are meeting a cool disinterest, despite claims that Zarqawi and Osama Bin Laden met with those crazy Iranian mullas. Even neocons' new efforts to stir American patriotism with cries for separation of church and state and disparaging Iran's ongoing elections meet with growing skepticism. American shoppers, never big fans of Iran's turbaned elite since the 1979 hostage crisis, nevertheless understand that mullas have a certain pride of place in Iranian political life. It's not the same in the US, where clergy only very occasionally run for office. But storming Tehran to push the mullas out of politics? Or even to hunt down Zarqawi, Bin Laden, and their minions? 

There's a high price to be paid for that! 

And Americans bought something similar in Iran not too long ago. It turned out to be not a very good deal. It cost America 444 days of grief - stricken waiting, a suicidal, fatally flawed military "rescue" operation that took 8 American lives (a helicopter-full), and a presidential election! 

Neocons and their Israeli spouses are now jawing "War! War!" at Syria. They claim Syria needs invading because it supposedly secreted Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, that when Zarqawi and Osama Bin Laden are not in Iran, they're in Syria, sending their followers into Iraq, and most recently, that Syria has sent secret agents into Lebanon to assassinate a politician and Samir Qassir, a university professor and writer. 

When Marco Biagi, a law professor-writer, was mercilessly gunned down in Italy, supposedly by Red Brigade terrorists, did neocons and their Israeli spouses urge America's military to secure Italy's borders? Did France, Germany, or Spain fret they were being criminally penetrated? Did the FBI examine the bloody Italian crime scenes? What would be the price to run Biagi's killers to ground? 

It would be so cheap. So why aren't neocons and their Israeli spouses interested in securing Italy? 

Think the war for "Seven Countries in Five Years" is all about fighting terrorism?