Wednesday, May 30, 2007

The way forward

Feckless Leader has said that it might just be for the best if we keep a wee bit of troops in Iraq for the long term, kind of like South Korea.

It could be that he's just talking out of his hat, Georgie has no known responsibilities in the executive branch, his utterances might reflect policy, they might not. One never knows.

The Plan has always been to have a major presence in Iraq, but the Plan has struck a reef and is taking on water, lots of it. While blithe optimism is definitely a moral booster for the hard core, grim facts on the ground will have to be noticed. The 'surge', always a stopgap measure, seems to have only made matter worse, that is, precipitating towards disaster.

Disaster might come sooner, or later, but Iraq has starkly delimited the extent of American power. The cost alone makes it unworkable, the Democratic run congress can keep cutting $150B checks every six months, but it's still not enough, it's never enough.

What remains to be seen is when the powers that be will make a new plan, and what that will be. Other powers are entering into the scene, the US will have to start making deals, and at least in private, stop acting like the master of the universe, nobody believes it anymore.

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