WHY NOT?

By way of Pat Lang, an article in the WAPO on a new strategy--to bolted on the surge--for Iraq, and, and suggestion by Steve Clemonsthat Cheney's rogue national security team is contemplating having Israel light the Iran fuse as a pretext for a US military attempt to...well, I don't know what it's purpose would be. Insidious.

The US has see-sawed between supporting a nation-state identified polity and security institutions and ratcheting down those efforts. Area experts of a certain disposition are certain about how difficult it would be to manage risk, specifically the risk of nation-state loyalty breaking down. Basically a large Iraqi military is a good idea in the idealistic abstract and also is a risky prospect should it regress under the pressure of a sectarian civil war. In light of this, the flow of resources sometimes flow and sometimes are stoppered. Schizophrenic.

Meanwhile, any effort to stabilize Iraq would be undermined should Iran be attacked. No matter what the unpredictable consequences would be in the mid-east, to shipping lanes, oil transport, to the world economy, and what kind of asymmetric counter-moves on American territory could be instantiated by a riled-up Iranian leadership, there doesn't seem to be any likelihood that an attack against Iran would have zero effect for the Iraqi stabilization effort.

The worst case is complete chaos in Iraq as the fragile support for the US project evaporates overnight. It could evaporate in the government, on the street, and most perilously, in the Iraqi military.

Nightmare.