I think this opinion piece in today’s International Herald Tribune, by Edward Luttwak of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is worth reading. Not because I agree with all of it, but because of its implication that the “surge” of troops would actually end up speeding disengagement from direct fighting in Iraq. Luttwak does not say it, but I think there is a prima facie case to be made that no one in the Bush administration, including Bush himself, really believes that the surge will make any difference nor that the failure in Iraq can be turned into a “victory” or anything resembling it. Rather, the surge is part of an extremely cynical–cynical because of the way it callously plays with both American and Iraqi lives–plan to make it look as though everything has been done on the US side, but that the Iraqis, meaning Maliki, did not keep their end of the bargain. Luttwak suggests that once the Iraqis are left on their own, they will have to solve the situation themselves and the result should be less violence rather than more.

As I say, worth reading, especially because it does not appear that Congress is going to be able to do anything in the short term about the escalation, nor is the antiwar movement strong enough to stop it. That means, like it or not, that we will all be going on to the next stage in this disaster. All we can do now is hope that Luttwak is right.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/06/opinion/edlutt.php