Well, at least we're trying?

The U.S. is sending a retired general to Iraq for an "open ended review" of the military's entire Iraq policy. Gen. Gary E. Luck (he's gonna need it...) will give his assessment of the whole Iraq craptastic mess to Rumsfeld in a few weeks in a "confidential" review. Who wants to bet the Washington Post or New York Times get their hands on it first? A boy can hope, anyway (any Pentagon operatives reading this who want to leak it to me directly, just leave it in the comments, please). If he's really independent and not just an administration lap dog, he'll come back and say we need lots more troops for lots more years.

But will his recommendations be rendered moot by events on the ground? What effect will the impending Iraqi elections have on our Iraq policy? The Sunni won't vote, the Shiah will win in a landslide. What if they then ask us nicely to leave on the next train out of Baghdad ? That will put us in the position of leaving and letting the place descend into civil war or staying and trying to suppress two insurrections. Or maybe we'll cut a deal with the some Shi'ite strongman and leave the place under another dictators control, but it will be more palatable to us because it will be Saddam's old allies, the Sunni, littering the killing fields. And the Kurds? With the Sunni triangle as a buffer, they can just let the other two factions fight it out. I truly hope I'm wrong, but I can't imagine Iraq as a stable democracy anytime soon.

Whenever I discuss the Iraq situation with someone who supports the war, their strongest argument is "But how can you argue that removing Saddam Hussein was a bad thing". I always answer "Because we can make things worse. This is worse." And I try not to scream it.