We shouldn't have gone into Lebanon... what about the Israelis. Might that not have been a more apt immediate comparison? Like it took them 20 years to extract themselves without, it seems, accomplishing much more than what they had done once they got to Beirut in the first place in 1982? And in the meantime, each of the multitudinous shifting sides used the Israelis to play off against each other, drawing out the interminable chaos. And the Israelis are left with a stronger, implacable opponent across the border in Hezbollah (with Iranian help I might add). There are lessons upon lessons to learn from that region, even if we only focus on the 20th century without knowing the millenia that proceeded. But that means one would have to be open to learning lessons, huh? We should take a careful look back at the Israelis' experience in Lebanon now. Because we're now smack in the middle of a civil war -- and the US Army and Marines are the main military forces in the war zone. All we can do is what we've been doing. Throw our weight behind one group after another in various internal showdowns. First in Najaf. Now in the Sunni triangle. Our primary strategic objective has to be simply to keep the turmoil from spilling outside Iraq itself. My fear from before the invasion has always been a Lebanon writ large, across the whole crescent, with various forest fires popping up here and there, but with Iraq the center of the conflagration. Let's hope Singh and Musaraffaf can keep Kashmir from igniting again. Though what the Pakistani army's likely to do as it keeps losing its raison d'etre as the pride of the nation, and is down to hunting bandits in the hills, is a little unclear. In some ways, we've made progress in the last couple of weeks. It's pretty clear now that it's not about terrorists and insurgents fighting an occupation anymore -- although the US presence certainly complicates things. And if Zeyad's comments last week are any indication, a growing number of Shi'ia and Kurds are starting to see things that way as well. But if the all-out civil war nature of the conflict becomes apparent to all, how in the world there can be elections is a mystery. One advantage -- the blame can't be only on the US. Looks like the case is being made rather forcefully that a portion of the country just doesn't want elections and a government on the same terms as the other parts, US or no US. So at that point, are there electons in the parts of Iraq that can hold them, and then try to impose the constitutional results on the Sunnis or "rebel areas"? One problem with the recent fighting is the election schedule foreced the US to move more rapidly than I'm sure the generals would have preferred. A few more months of gradually increasing the intensity of skirmishes and pressure on Fallujah itself, building up collaborators and inteligence, doing a few more Samarras -- losing them, retaking them is part of the process. But patience would have more likely been rewarded than this early full-bore assault with no forces to hold onto the territory taken when the other cities blew up in violence. I'm as sure that the generals expected that as I'm sure of my own name, but not much they can do, undermanned as they are. Patience would have allowed the general civilian population to get more and more tired of attacks on Iraqis, of the radicals and foreigners behavior than the behavior of the Americans . Giving the Iraqi troops and police more time to train. Having more bodies ready and equipped to go into areas to hold them once pockets had been cleaned out. The likelihood of course is we'll have to keep retaking the same places. If the prospect of elections fades rapidly in the face of the whole Sunni triangle exploding, and violence continuing in Baghdad and points south, we may be able to return to a more patient approach. And it will have been the Iraqis and the UN who concluded that elections weren't feasible, not us.We'll have to see what happens at the conference on Nov 25. Guess since Colin has resigned, who goes in his stead? Know when it's effective? He was planning a trip to the W Bank as well. In the fluid fights to come in Iraq, we and the Iranians may wind up from time to time being more on the same side than not. But as anything close to a "final settlement" approaches, we and the Iranians will have just about as much in common as the Israelis and the Syrians. If I were the Kurds, I'd be making a break for Turkey sometime about when it's clear elections are going to have to be postponed. Sheeesh...