Keep in mind that in talking about the Bush administration you're likely talking about a great number of people who think Israel's invasion of Lebanon was the right thing to do, and that the concept of installing a friendly Maronite government was the right way to do it. So it's not clear that any lessons are being learned here. The likely lesson they will draw, it seems to me, is that Iran is the common thread between the two situations and therefore must be taken out. You and I had both thought that the situation in Iraq would tie Bush's hands vis-a-vis Iran, but with the USNews data dump and Colin Powell's resignation (after declaring that the use of force in Iran is off the table), I'm not too sure anymore. On the civil war question, it seems localized at this point but on the brink of widening. I'm sure that many Sunnis have noticed that prominent Shi'ite leaders were not so eager to condemn the reduction of Fallujah. I imagine as well that if you had the names of tribes involved and some basic assumptions about codes of vengeance, you could even map and predict the tipping point at which revenge attacks become full-blown war. The question going forward for the Americans is: how much do we want to depend on the peshmerga and Badr Brigades, and how much are they willing to be depended upon. I can imagine that there are a large number of Kurds up in the north thinking, especially in regards to what's going on in Mosul, maybe we shouldn't be sticking our necks out like this. I'm reading stories of Kurdish students fleeing Iraq for Kurdistan due to rising incidents of persecution. Turkey is anathema to most Kurds, but it looks like the most realistic option, as you suggest, since Iran seems to be backing Ansar al-Islam and other anti-Kurdish groups, cracking down on dissent within Iranian Kurdistan, and getting nervous about Israeli intelligence in its backyard, while most if not all Arab states couldn't care less about the Kurds and would back the Sunnis in any conflict. As for the timing of Fallujah, I read in the Times that it had to be completed before Allawi went to Cairo, probably so that he could present the Arab Leaue with a fait accompli. It doesn't look like we had the intelligence to let us know that half or more of the insurgents had snuck out, so I'm not sure I buy your theory that we knew what was going to happen. Certainly Mosul was a big surprise, no? Looking ahead, I think you're right that the strategy will be to shore up our position with the Shi'ites and Kurds and try to impose our will on the Sunnis. That was the tenor of Newt Gingrich's remarks on the Sunday talkies, and I imagine he speaks for many within the administration as well.