Counter-ISG operations

As will soon be apparent, the Iraq Survey* Group, of which Mr. Gates is a member and to which I'm an adviser, has not discovered any way for the U.S. to exit Iraq -- except under catastrophic conditions. Its recommendations will probably be the least helpful of all the blue-ribbon commissions in Washington since World War II because it cannot escape from an unavoidable reality: We either declare defeat and withdraw completely tout de suite, or we surge troops into Baghdad and fight. The ISG will surely try to find some middle ground between these positions, which, of course, doesn't exist.

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US plans last big push in Iraq

President George Bush has told senior advisers that the US and its allies must make "a last big push" to win the war in Iraq and that instead of beginning a troop withdrawal next year, he may increase US forces by up to 20,000 soldiers, according to sources familiar with the administration's internal deliberations.

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Phased withdrawal

It's really simple: the more troops you take out, the more the militias fill the gap. So what may start out as a phased withdrawal may soon turn into a route as the violence ramps up.

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Get Jim in Here, Pronto!

Being a Washington Wise Man does not require much wisdom. Baker has a "conviction," said a Baker colleague quoted in The Post on Sunday, "that Iraq is the central foreign policy issue confronting the United States." Wow. Now there's an insight. Actually, it is a nice small insight into the Baker mentality that he apparently can imagine a war that is killing large numbers of young Americans every month but that is not our central foreign policy issue. Baker also believes that "the only way to address that issue successfully is to first build a bipartisan consensus." Now, that is a conviction you can sink your teeth into. People like Baker always favor a bipartisan consensus. They don't really believe in politics, which is to say they don't really believe in democracy.

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  thanks to Bad Attitudes

Iraq sectarian strife imperils entire region
Analysts say civil war is a reality, but real worry is that chaos will spread

Violence in Iraq Called Increasingly Complex

Attacks in Iraq reached a high of approximately 180 a day last month, reflecting an increasingly complicated conflict that includes sectarian clashes of Sunni and Shiite militias on top of continuing strikes by insurgents, criminal gangs and al-Qaeda terrorists, according to the directors of the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. [...] In unusually harsh terms, the two intelligence directors spelled out how quickly the violence in Iraq has escalated this year, from about 70 attacks a day in January to about 100 a day in May and then to last month's figure. "Violence in Iraq continues to increase in scope, complexity, and lethality" despite operations by the Iraqi government and the U.S.-led coalition, Maples said. He described "an atmosphere of fear and hardening sectarianism which is empowering militias and vigilante groups, hastening middle-class exodus, and shaking confidence in government and security forces."

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  thanks to Juan Cole

Here come the odious excuses
by Robert Fisk

"Great news from America!" the cashier at my local Beirut bookshop shouted at me yesterday morning, raising her thumbs in the air. "Things will be better after these elections?" Alas, I said. Alas, no. Things are going to get worse in the Middle East even if, in two years' time, America is blessed with a Democrat (and democratic) president. For the disastrous philosophers behind the bloodbath in Iraq are now washing their hands of the whole mess and crying "Not Us!" with the same enthusiasm as the Lebanese lady in my book shop, while the "experts" on the mainstream US east coast press are preparing the ground for our Iraqi retreat - by blaming it all on those greedy, blood-lusting, anarchic, depraved, uncompromising Iraqis.

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No Exit? What It Means to "Salvage U.S. Prestige" in Iraq