Where to begin? The report from the Iraq Study Group (Don't they finance programming on PBS?) boldly states the situation in Iraq is bad and getting worse.
No shit.
Either we pull out immediately, and let Iraq descend into a maelstrom of violence and despair that is entirely of our own making, or we stay, with a military already stretched beyond the breaking point, a hated presence by many Iraqis on all sides of the conflict. We're defeated either way.
Which is an important point: Although the U.S. has a long history of installing or propping up despotic leaders of foreign nations (such as Augusto Pinochet, or Saddam Hussein, for that matter), and getting involved in conflicts that didn't involve us (Vietnam), this is the first time we've openly declared war on a nation that had done nothing to provoke our response, the first time we have been an aggressor, an invading army.
And we lost.
Because it's over, let's face it. Whatever the outcome, the world's last remaining superpower has shown it doesn't have what it takes to achieve victory against a significantly smaller opponent. Much as Emperor Palpatine could not have imagined his mighty empire would be defeated by a small army of scappy Ewoks, it was inconceivable to Bush--to anyone in Washington's power elite, really--that this could happen. This was a slam dunk.
Though I haven't plowed through the whole Iraq Study Group (Is that anything like the Babysitters' Club?), the primary focus of the thing is clearly U.S.-based: What we should do, how we can do it. Once again, concern for the plight of the avaerage Iraqi, who will be forced to live (or die) with the consequences of whatever we do next, is the least of our concerns. Isn't that the kind of thinking that got us here in the first place?
