End Game

John Cole has a very important post that sums up the situation in Iraq and yes the United States:
The New Metric

Go read the entire post but the conclusion will make a good teaser.

Iraq is a mess. It will continue to be a mess for the foreseeable future, and there seems to be very little we can do in the short term to fix the many problems, and we are hamstrung in the sense that there literally is nothing we can do in the long term other than cross our fingers and begin the inevitable drawdown to keep the military from completely disintegrating. I state all of this not because I hate America, not because the liberal media wants us to lose, and not because I have Bush Derangement Syndrome. I say this, because when I look at the evidence, there is no other conclusion to be reached. I want us to win, if for no other reason than I feel very, very responsible for us being in Iraq. But I simply do not understand how sane people can look at the evidence and conclude the only problem we face is a liberal media lying about our inevitable victory.

Most important, we have no options left, really. That doesn’t make me happy, and it certainly does not make me proud, but it does mean that I am going to greet the rosy scenarios fed to us over the next few weeks with some massive servings of salt.