Humpty Dumpty

Bush's speech on Iraq tonight was more forthright than his usual, but it did reiterate one of his big lies - the conflation of Iraq and terrorism. He also failed to squarely confront the central problem in today's Iraq - the simmering three-way civil war among Kurds, Sunnis and Shia. He quite likely is correct that walking away right now might cause us more problems than it solves. Having broken the Iraqi state, can we put it back together?

The existing constitution is an almost certain recipe for continuing civil war. After the defeat of Japan, McArthur pretty much personally wrote the Japanese constitution, and took extensive steps to make sure that Japan developed the institutions to support it. In their weakness, folly and arrogance, the Bushies didn't even try to do the same in Iraq.

Many, like Republican Lindsay Graham and Democrat Joseph Biden, say that the next six months are critical for achieving a workable constitution in Iraq. I'm not sure we still have the leverage or even the will to push the Iraqi's into adopting a constitution less certain to cause civil war, but one can still hope.

The President's worst failure was failing to recognize the need for a political solution. If we don't face that fact, whatever success we have will be hollow indeed.

I am pretty confident that we will be leaving Iraq sometime in the next three years, and that however we leave, even if it's clinging to helicopter skids as we evacuate the Embassy, victory will be proclaimed.

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