snip
So far, we have been following a policy that envisions revolutionary change in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East leading to a Utopian and Earthly Paradise of the sort fantasized by Frum and Perle in their egregious book, "The End of Evil." The military strategy we have been following was inflicted on the armed forces by the Bush Administration in pursuit of that goal. Large forces were not thought necessary because Iraq, like the rest of the Middle East, was thought by the Bush Administration to be a "pile of tinder" awaiting only a match in order to burst into revolutionary flames. That did not happen. Instead the various "centrifugal" forces of tribal, and sectarian Iraq are tearing the country apart while at the same time protesting the authenticity of their "Iraqiness."
The game is actually over in Iraq. It has been decided in the streets and its outcome is symbolized by the piles of tortured corpses "discovered" each day by the same police who may well have been complicit in the "drillings" and shootings of the previous night.
Iraq is going to be partitioned. This may be either de facto or de jure but it will be partitioned. The process of disintegration launched by the United States in eliminating the mechanisms of state integrity has progressed so far that effective dissolution of the old Iraq is inevitable. The recent frustrated desperation evident in the statements of the US command in Baghdad, and the ridiculous futility of Dr. Rice's latest trip are unmistakable signs of disintegration. Indeed, the partition is now underway.
US forces have been pulled back into the capital for a so far unsuccessful attempt to quell the violence. Not only has this concentration been unsuccessful but it has stripped Anbar Province of troops that were need to deal with growing Sunni insurgent and Islamist power.
more...
http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/10/the_other_shoe_.html