Bush must accept bloody reality and follow our fumbling retreat

by Simon Jenkins in "The Sunday Times" - More here:

This week David Petraeus, the talented American general in Baghdad, reports on the progress of his “surge” strategy to an impatient Congress. Two thirds of Americans have joined two thirds of world opinion in wanting a swift American withdrawal, defined as inside a year. Petraeus’s predicament is therefore agonising. He cannot possibly offer victory. He can offer only defeat or a desperate clinging on, as now. For George Bush, his commander-in-chief, only the last is imaginable. Petraeus must therefore forget about a better yesterday or a better tomorrow, and concentrate on today.

Here he is trapped. The more optimistic his progress report, the more it will support clinging on as now. Bush and Gordon Brown will grasp at any straw that allows them to postpone withdrawal. They grasp at the success of supporting the Sunni Islamic Army against Al-Qaeda cells in Anbar province, despite Bush having to describe as “our friends” Saddamist thugs whom he spent four years trying to eliminate, notably in Falluja.

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Iraq has been a disaster, an illegal act crassly perpetrated by supposedly honourable powers. (emphasis added) It shows what happens when crackpot idealism breaks from the realm of think tanks and journalism and penetrates the body politic. It validates the remark of the philosopher John Gray that “modern politics is really a chapter in the history of religion”.

Last month the British began fumbling their way towards an escape from this disaster. The danger for Petraeus is that he digs a deeper hole.

When Reagan had to raise taxes they called it 'revenue enhancements'. This is Standard Operating Proceedure for the GOP.

This fiasco has been going on for far too long, and sad to say, we'll probably still be stuck in Iraq for many more years.