No matter how Cheney and Bush try spin "last throes," the news out of Iraq this morning looks nothing like an insurgency in its last throes. The New York Times reports

insurgents set up roadblocks in central Baghdad and opened fire on U.S. and Iraqi troops just north of the heavily fortified Green Zone.

The insurgents "were armed with rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades and rifles." At least they don't have armored vehicles yet. Keep in mind this attack comes ten days after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki initiated a large scale security effort in Baghdad. It sure doesn't look like the Iraqi "government" is in control of much outside of the Green Zone. If that is the case, look for Bush to move the goal post yet again and announce that U.S. troops will leave Iraq once the Iraqi army and security forces are able to secure the Green Zone. It's clear the new "government" has very little efficacy and as a result large numbers of Iraqis remain committed to violence rather than politics as a means of obtaining power.

Other than staying the course, that is doing the same thing we're doing now with little results, George Bush and his Rubber Stamp Congress haven't offered up a policy that has any chance of changing the situation in Iraq. Hawks of the sort that Bush brought into office like to say that sanctions aren't very effective in dealing with regimes like Saddam Hussein's; what we're seeing in Iraq is the very real limits of military force in solving problems.
posted by Idle Crank at 6/23/2006 08:55:00 AM