Ferrablog

Kevin Drum sums up how badly things are going in Iraq, and comes to this conclusion:

The most likely endpoint is this: in the short term a UN-brokered political settlement, and in the longer term an Islamic theocracy headed in the background by Sistani, with Chalabi pulling strings at his side and Muqtada (or his clones) keeping anti-American sentiment burning in the foreground. Chalabi will sell us out in a second if he needs to, Sistani will gradually lose influence, and before long Iraq will probably bear more resemblance to Iran than to Egypt. Or perhaps the West Bank if American troops remain.

And the United States will end up in a worse position than when we started, our foreign policy in hock to the UN and a group of Islamic theocrats.

Maybe that would have happened no matter what. I don't know. But there's not much question that in this universe we ended up where we did because George Bush wasn't willing to take the political risks needed to win this war. And he still isn't.

So I'll end this post with my usual question to the hawks: why are you supporting this guy? Sure, he talks a good game, but in the real world he's betrayed everything you wanted out of simple political cowardice. Why does he retain your loyalty when he's made it so plain that he has neither a realistic plan to win the war nor the political will to see it through?

Iraq is a self-inflicted wound, which makes it all the more troublesome. The Democrats generally run on domestic issues, but if nothing else, a change to John Kerry is needed to just to give our country some credibility on the world stage again. History will not judge the George W. Bush presidency kindly, and four more years of it is just too troubling to think about.