Iraq's future: the present course and the alternatives"There are some who feel like that if they attack us that we may decide to leave prematurely. They don't understand what they're talking about, if that's the case. My answer is, bring them on. We've got the force necessary to deal with the security situation." George W. Bush -- 2 July 2003
"George W. Bush, you have asked us to 'bring it on.' And so help me,
like you never expected. Do you have another challenge?" Iraqi resistance propaganda video -- 2004
Just after the fall of Baghdad two years ago President Bush, in an ostentatious propaganda set-piece reminiscent of a Roman triumph, landed a jet on the runway of the USS Abraham Lincoln and disembarked in front of a banner reading "Mission Accomplished." Iraq, we were told, was gazing upwards at the bright new dawn of freedom. Now in 2005, mired in a brutal counter-insurgency war, it finds itself instead staring deep into the abyss. What are the prospects for its future?
Recently, on his indispensable Middle East blog "Informed Comment," Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan, took a "step back from the daily train wreck news" to assess the chances of a solution being reached. The picture he painted was a bleak one.
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