Three pessimists walk into a bar:

On the subject of Iraq, three remarkable essays today in the Washington Post - from folks who supported Bush a couple of years ago:

• Robert Kaplan - We Can't Force Democracy

  The decision to remove [Saddam] was defensible, while not providential. The portrait of Iraq that has emerged since his fall reveals him as the Hobbesian nemesis who may have kept in check an even greater anarchy than the kind that obtained under his rule.
  
  The lesson to take away is that where it involves other despotic regimes in the region -- none of which is nearly as despotic as Hussein's -- the last thing we should do is actively precipitate their demise. The more organically they evolve and dissolve, the less likely it is that blood will flow.

• Jim Hoagland - Face Iraq's Past : Phony National Reconciliation Is a Bad Choice

  To promote an enforced phony national reconciliation built on concessions to Sunni extremists to wean them from violence, as Washington has repeatedly attempted, is self-defeating.

• George Will - Rhetoric of Unreality : Where Is Iraq After Nearly 3 Years of War?

  Almost three years after the invasion, it is still not certain whether, or in what sense, Iraq is a nation. And after two elections and a referendum on its constitution, Iraq barely has a government. A defining attribute of a government is that it has a monopoly on the legitimate exercise of violence. That attribute is incompatible with the existence of private militias of the sort that maraud in Iraq.

These on the heels of William Buckley's It Didn't Work.

Iraq isn't a lost cause yet, but it's getting close. These essays are a clear indication that Bush has lost his political capital. And he could sink further in the opinion of conservatives.

NOTE: Even George Will is fed up with Bush's language:

Last week, in the latest iteration of a familiar speech (the enemy is "brutal," "we're on the offensive," "freedom is on the march") that should be retired, the president said, "This is a moment of choosing for the Iraqi people." Meaning what? Who is to choose, and by what mechanism? Most Iraqis already "chose" -- meaning prefer -- peace. But in 1917 there were only a few thousand Bolsheviks among 150 million Russians -- and the Bolsheviks succeeded in hijacking the country for seven decades.

posted by Quiddity at 3/02/2006 01:18:00 PM