The Bush administration may ratchet up the Iraq war.

That might seem unlikely, even farfetched. After all, the president is facing an upsurge of domestic opposition to the war. Under such circumstances, why would he escalate it?

A big ongoing factor is that George W. Bush and his top aides seem to believe in red-white-and-blue violence with a fervor akin to religiosity. For them, the Pentagon’s capacity to destroy is some kind of sacrament. And even if more troops aren’t readily available for duty in Iraq, huge supplies of aircraft and missiles are available to step up the killing from the air.

Back in the USA, while the growth of antiwar sentiment is apparent, much of the criticism -- especially what’s spotlighted in news media -- is based on distress that American casualties are continuing without any semblance of victory. In effect, many commentators see the problem as a grievous failure to kill enough of the bad guys in Iraq and sufficiently intimidate the rest.

(Bypassing the euphemisms preferred by many liberal pundits, George Will wrote in a Washington Post column on April 7, 2004, that “every

Tom Hayden is an anti-war activist who most recently was the lead author of “The Peoples Petition for Iraqi Peace.” He was a leader of the student, civil rights and anti-war movements in the Sixties, and the environmental and anti-nuclear movements in the Seventies. He served in the California Assembly from 1982-1992. He is currently a professor at Occidental College and social science adviser for Animo public schools: Venice, Inglewood, Lennox, South Central and Boyle Heights, California. He is the author of nine books, including “The Lost Gospel of the Earth,” “The Whole World Was Watching” and “Irish Hunger.” The New York Times cited his 1988 book, “Reunion,” as one of the best 200 of the year.

The day after Wednesday night’s nationwide vigils, the big headline at the top of the MoveOn.org home page said: “Support Cindy Sheehan.” But MoveOn does not support Cindy Sheehan’s call for swift withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

Many groups were important to the success of the Aug. 17 vigils, but the online powerhouse MoveOn was the largest and most prominent. After a long stretch of virtual absence from Iraq war issues, the organization deserves credit for getting re-involved in recent months. But the disconnects between MoveOn and much of the grassroots antiwar movement are disturbing.

Part of the problem is MoveOn’s routine fuzziness about the war -- and the way that the group is inclined to water down the messages of antiwar activism, much of which is not connected to the organization.

Consider how the MoveOn website summarized the vigils: “Last night, tens of thousands of supporters gathered at 1,625 vigils to acknowledge the sacrifices made by Cindy Sheehan, her son Casey and the more than 1,800 brave American men and women who have given their lives in Iraq --

You can tell in five minutes channel surfing how Cindy Sheehan frightens the pro-war crowd. One bereaved mom from Vacaville, Calif., camped outside Bush's home in Crawford, reproaching the vacationing president for sending her son to a pointless death in Iraq has got the hellhounds of the Right barking in venomous unison.

Bill O'Reilly just howls about Sheehan's low character in her refusal to pay federal taxes that might put more money the Pentagon's way.

Listening to O'Reilly and even mainstream pundits, you'd think tax-resistance was a fresh and terrible arrival on the shores of American protest instead of a form of resistance as old as the Republic.

But the notion that tax resistance somehow marginalizes Sheehan as an "extremist" does highlight an important point. The aim of any serious anti-war protest is to force a government to quit fighting, pull the troops out and come home right now.

But Sheehan is castigated in the press, by mainstream liberals as well as mad-dog rightists, for not leaving any wriggle-room on this central point. She says, "Bring the troops home right now."