good news?

I should begin this post by admitting that I really cannot envision a satisfactory solution to the situation in Iraq. There have been so many egregious mistakes and miscalculations that any kind of objectively-defined successful outcome to this war seems increasingly unlikely.

In the Sunday NYT, Eric Schmidt reports that:

. . . the top American commander in the Middle East outlined a plan that would gradually reduce American forces in Iraq by perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 troops by next spring.

On the Shields and Brooks segment of the Newshour with Jim Lehrer on Friday, Mark Shields, bar-none the finest and smartest political pundit seen regularly on television, explained the problem in this way:

I think for the first time what we're understanding is there's no narrative to this war; there's no landing at Normandy then taking Paris and then the fall of Berlin. There are no battles. There's no success. And the president has laid down a standard for victory that is the democratization and freedom of Iraq and maybe even the Middle East that is probably un-meetable, unattainable and that the George Bush's presidency and his legacy will be judged not by leave no child behind or anything of the sort. Iraq is going to be the ultimate test.

He's right. On a day-to-day basis, the most the administration can hope for is a stalemate in the "War on Terror," or whatever it is they're calling it these days.