But staying the course can be a very bad thing. Like when you're 180° off. If you're going the wrong way, staying the course is not heroic.
The war in Iraq is unwinnable. That's just the reality of things. Hell, no one has even said what it would mean to win this war. The new Iraqi government will never be able to control their country. WE can't control their country, and we're the mightiest nation on earth. So any mythological notion of getting things stable before we leave is just a fantasy. At some point we will finally get sick of being there, and then we will leave. On that day the forces of revolution will have their way. Revolution is inevitable in all human affairs. When people are unhappy for a long time - for any reason, real or imagined - revolution comes like a cleansing fire and burns down the house.
Revolution is ugly, and things are going to be very ugly over there. For a long time.
A friend of mine likens George Bush's unwillingness to admit that this war is the mother-of-all pooch screws to his unwillingness to pronounce the word nuclear correctly. Oh, he knows how to say it. He just won't.
It's a brilliant piece of analysis and observation, if you ask me.
