I think the key will be what happens after. The Israeli government never goes back in afterwards to rebuild the innocent civilians' homes or businesses. If the US leaves Iraq ASAP (after the dust has settled), the Iraqis have democracy and complete autonomy over their country, including the oil, your analogy will not apply. In fact, in may do much to improve the image of the US. My argument isn't actually that the Iraqi's will hate us - I think they will definitely be grateful. But if we go to war and, say Moroccan citizens think we're this imperialist country, they are going to develop a dislike / distrust of us and that's going to make them fertile recruiting ground for anti-Americanism. No matter the results of the war, there are going to be people saying it was unjust. You have to get that support before the action takes place. [edit: I may have misinterpreted your post the first time I read it, thinking you were referring to Iraqi dislike for us, instead of dislike from other countries. If so, much of this is irrelevent, but I think it does matter if there is support before vs. after the action] On the other hand, if we make a concerted public effort to turn world opinion and get the world on board and involved with this action, it doesn't create that same hatred. Instead, we might be viewed more positively as protecting the world as after the Gulf War. I really think the Bush I strategy should be the blueprint for how to conduct military operations these days. I'm not saying we would be able to get that world support (personally, I think it would not be difficult at all), but we haven't even made any kind of consistent effort to try to demonstrate to unfriendly nations that this action is legitimate. Those people aren't going to believe "trust us, we have evidence". If it doesn't work, fine - but we've at least got to try.
That might make them easier to find and destroy; I'm imagine that the satellites are picking up the activity.
Don't read too much into my statement. Only asking you to stand in an average Palestinian's shoes for a minute (not the shoes of a suicide bomber). I don't condone suicide bombing at all, but I do feel for the rest of the Palestinians.
