Iraq and the surge to hell

An unremitting and relentless propaganda campaign has worked well enough to take some of the pressure off the administration, and thus the props that hold it up. These guys are good, at least at manipulating public opinion, if not at changing any of the facts that loom, wordlessly for now.

But for the life of me I cannot see anything that can change the situation, nor any actions that might be contemplated by Cheney that can do anything more than delay the descent into disaster. The surge cannot last, even the pre-surge forces were running out of time, so the surge has traded a short term propaganda gain for a long term disaster brought that much closer.

Politically, in Iraq, the US continues to try to play both sides against the middle, but there is no middle. The seeming shift to the Sunnis just pisses of the Shiites, while the insurgency continues to be mostly a Sunni phenomenon, for now. The Brits are on their way out, and have basically withdrawn to their bunker anyway, how does the US propose to surge into the south? Maliki has been talking to the Iranians, some of the talk concerned building a pipeline to pump Iraqi crude to Iranian refineries. I'm sure Maliki and the Iranians would be happy with a Shiite southern Iraqi state, but how can the US allow that? How can they stop it?

Petraeus's September song will give another boost, and probably buy at least six months more on the home front. The Democrats are now thoroughly cowed (please, tell me why), and will evidently pass anything they're told to, including throwing another $150B down the sewer. They are hopeless and can do nothing to stop the surge to hell.