Black Box Report

You wonder if people like Gen. David Petraeus have read Joseph Heller's Catch-22, because the latest word from the US Commander in Iraq is that if the surge fails, we'll be there even longer. As AmericaBlog points out, this is a scenario that could've been dreamed up by Colonel Cathcart himself:

Most of us...all of us, thought that if Petraeus reported in September that the last-ditch surge effort didn't work, the war would be over. Not true. Now, the failure of our last chance effort means we'll stay even longer (to try another last-chance effort?). And, I assume, if Petraeus reports that the surge IS working, we'll also stay longer (you know, to finish the job). So, either way, win or lose, we're staying no matter what. So what exactly is the point of Petraeus reporting anything at all?

But don't worry. EVERYTHING's under control! We've all been told time and time again this is NOT an open-ended occupation. In fact, Petraeus compared the US mission in Iraq to England's counterinsurgency efforts in Ireland, a conflict that's only a mere 800 years in the making. Forget South Korea. We officially have a NEW Worst Historical Analogy Ever:

Allow me to don my County Roscommon accent and wave my Grandfather's shillelagh about -- yes, yes, good heft -- okay then ...

Well that's encouraging!

...at least now we know what we can look forward to....Bet you never anticipated Bush's "South Korea" model for Iraq would be the good version, eh?

Only fifty years? We'd be getting off lucky.

Read the whole thing for a good idea of what we can look forward to using the Northern Ireland model of Screwed Up Foreign Policy. But at least we've got the best and the brightest running things over there, right? To borrow a phrase, "Sadly, No!" It seems that our new ambassador to Iraq is in a bit of a panic:

Ryan C. Crocker, the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq, bluntly told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a cable dated May 31 that the embassy in Baghdad -- the largest and most expensive U.S. embassy -- lacks enough well-qualified staff members and that its security rules are too restrictive for Foreign Service officers to do their jobs.

"Simply put, we cannot do the nation's most important work if we do not have the Department's best people," Crocker said in the memo.

Which is what happens when your standard for hiring someone to rebuild Iraq is whether or not they donated to Bush and the Republican party:

As awful as this is, let's not forget that the Bush gang set this dynamic up on purpose. They insisted on having a team of young and unqualified far-right activists treat Iraq like a Heritage Foundation Camp. They, predictably, screwed up royally, and now Crocker is wondering why experienced experts are hesitant to fly into a civil war to clean up the mess.

But on the bright side, we're using Northern Ireland as our template for success. When the administration starts drawing comparisons to Israel and Palestine, THEN you can really start to panic.