Well, here on Best of the Blogs, there has been a lot of writing about the Presidential candidates and the election. Of course, it is a huge event. However, I decided to bring back that old hoary monster, Iraq, back into the discussion.

Recently, the American MSM has been touting the “success” in pacifying Iraq. If they report on Iraq at all. Well, that is untrue. Tom Engelhardt sums up pretty well how much of a disaster Iraq is. He forgot to say cholera is rampant, but otherwise he is pretty spot on.

The basic plan of President Bush still seems to give the whole mess to whichever Democrat succeeds him, and then the right will attack the left for “losing” the success that Bush’s policies created. To achieve this, he will keep troop numbers up as long as possible, and bomb the smithereens out of Iraq. By the way, bombing in an insurgency is a sure sign of failed military policy. It is extremely self defeating.

There are two things wrong with this idea that Iraq has improved, and that we can indefinitely maintain troops there .

One. Iraq is not at all pacified. Both the Shia and Sunni are using the time to re-equip. They are not defeated. In fact, we are paying the Sunni guerrillas, who fought us a few months ago, to be quiet. (and many are still fighting none the less, US troops continue to die in Iraq in high numbers) I have never, in all my study of military history, found any plan so obscene. This is just to score political advantage for the US domestic Republican party, it is military insanity. There is a strong possibility of Iraq violence becoming too big to ignore in the ten months left before the election. There is really no way anything in Iraq can be touted as “success”.

Two. The US economy is in sad shape. Oil has not yet cleared $100 at a steady rate yet, but it bounces around at the $90 to $100 level. I do feel it will eventually go up further. Also, the MSM is not paying much attention to the drought in the American southeast and southwest. Here is a look at lake Lanier, the ONLY source of water for the 5 million people of Atlanta and parts of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. I do not know if this will force population evacuations this summer, but it does look possible. In any case, it will mean a massive lifestyle change for the people of the American southeast. And the southwest is bad too.

I think that the American ability to continue the war in Iraq will eventually fail due to American domestic problems. The only question is, will President Bush be able to keep the whole mess together long enough to blame his successor?