Remember, I predict they will blame the whole thing on Democratic intransigence, if not actually on Clinton. There'll be muttering about it for decades on the right.

Many foreign policy experts believe that the commission could sway President Bush more than most such study groups because of Baker's close ties to the Bush family.

I don't see this happening. I expect this report to just go on the pile and fade into the press's ten-day memory the way all such studies do. Remember all the trumpeting about the new "clear, hold and build" or "inkspot" strategy? That was actually ratified by the White House and Condi, and where is it now?

I suspect Bush is just going to continue this way through 2008 and then dump the problem in someone else's lap. Then whatever happens, they'll blame the new president for "not following the plan that we gave them, which would have worked out if they didn't get cold feet."

Just to let you know what we have to expect from the Neocons:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolchsto%C3%9Flegende

Well, it looks like we've effectively cut the PM off at the knees. Any hope that there would be any legitimacy in the political process just went down the crapper this morning when we decided to bomb Sadr City (and commanding the Iraqi Army to move in) without notifying the Iraqi government. Maliki is promising that that will be the very last time that happens, but something tells me that horse done left already. No one really believes the government is sovereign now.

So, this shows how even when things look bad, there's even worse I guess.

He must be furious we ordered an attck on his cleric allies stronghold using Iraqi Forces. I suppose it goes to show we dont trust him either if the goal was a high level individual in the clerics militia zone.

Might as well hand the nation over to that cleric and be done with it at this point, or at least half the nation. Pick another powerful Sunni cleric to control the other half and build a fence between them. (Fences are becoming fashionable arent they) We could call it a Theocratic Democracy, err a Democratic Theocracy... oh i dunno

it is kind of starting to look like in about 20 years Iraq will be back to, or worse off, than before. but then again, iraq wasn't invaded for THEIR benefit was it?

It is called "scorched earth", and this is what Soviets tried to do leaving Afghanistan and what Germans did leaving Finland. A beginning of a retreat with a bang so big, it can't be called anything else but victorious.

I dont see Iraq as scorched earth. It sounds too medievil, too conventional. Poisoning of wells, burning of cities, destroying everything in the wake of a moving army, yadda yadda.

Isn't scorched earth a bit more along the lines of determined policy of making the country un-liveable. 60 - 100 iraqi's dying a day is an un-liveable outcome in my book, but the factions there seem to have as much stake in causing this as anyone at this point.

Take Chechnya on the otherhand, wouldnt that qualify as true scorched earth policy. An objective of bringing the province to its knees through total destruction of its industry, cities and agriculture?

Yup. It is hard to give the Bush admin credit for this kind of malice when it is so obvious that their sin is incompetence.

Since the country is already crippled and we have the example of post-Saddam looting to show what happens when order breaks down, we wouldn't need to bother.

When drawing with crayons...