"if things go very well" or "when Iraqi forces can supply the necessary security".

Dream on.

How many centuries do you envision this will take? I'll clue you--it'll be a while.


In fact, Iraq is busily drifting in the wrong direction--if not rushing in the wrong direction.



I've just heard--you may have also--that one of the top Sunnis, head of one of the most prominent parties in Iraq, is now to be arrested.

Short cut to real civil war.

And there ain't too awful much we can do about it.

As I've said before, our leverage is--severely--limited.

For Maliki, it's a Catch-22.   To undercut the insurgency he has to do the same 2 things I've been talking about for over a year---assure the Sunnis that they will have more oil income than would accrue to just "their" parts of Iraq, and, even more urgently, make sure that Sunnis can trust the police--which they emphatically cannot now. But one of the main supporters of his government, al Sadr, refuses to accept real purging of the Shiite militias now in the police--which is the only way Sunnis could trust them.

Nobody likes the horrendous--and worsening--bloodshed---but the first step to dealing with a situation is recognizing reality.

The perfect Pollyanna attitude, as illustrated by "if things go very well" or "when Iraqi forces can supply the necessary security" is not helpful.