Now that this war is actually going to happen, I want the U.S. to win in a rout.

I don’t care if I look foolish for having predicted dire consequences. I want minimal casualties -- and minimal glory. On the radio this morning, someone said this war might look the Panama invasion. That’s not insubstantial enough. I want Grenada.

I want unharmed Iraqi civilians to cheer unharmed American troops almost immediately. I want this war to be so brief, so painless and bloodless, that it’s a dim memory by Memorial Day.

If that happens, this war will never really become part of our national myth. That’s good, because war has sex appeal for far too many people.

And if it happens, war will have been a prologue -- and nation-building will be the main act. I don’t believe the aftermath of this war will in any way live up to its promise, as articulated by Bush and his subordinates -- but as long as that aftermath, Iraq as America’s 51st state, is inevitable, it would be good to get to it now.

I hope we have as little as possible of Warlord Bush, so we can soon see the real Bush again, the one who’s never done anything successfully in his adult life.

And then I hope we do to him what we did to his father.