The Tiger's Tail
THE TIGER'S TAIL....The New York Times reports that the intelligence community will release a new assessment of Iraq's future on Thursday:
"The report says that there's been little political progress to date, and it's very gloomy on the chances for political progress in the future," said one Congressional official with knowledge of its contents.So we can't stay and we can't leave. Terrific. What's worse, we now have a president who's officially decided to take history lessons from Rambo. Turns out we were this close to winning in Vietnam when the Defeatocrats decided to pull the plug. And with that, yet another longtime conservative fantasy makes its way out of the fever swamps and into the public discourse, where we'll all be expected to stroke our chins and pretend to take it seriously for the next week or so.....The report, which was intended to help anticipate events over the next 6 to 12 months, is "more dire in its assessments" than the administration has been in its own internal discussions, according to one senior official who has read it. But the report also warns, as Mr. Bush did on Wednesday, that an early withdrawal would lead to more chaos.
"It doesn't take a policy position," one official said. "But it leaves you with the sense that what we've been doing hasn't been working, but we can't let up, or it'll get worse."
I need a drink.