It's no longer a matter of ideology or politics or strategy. We are now in the merciless hands of the most unforgiving mistress of all: logistics. The armed forces are simply stretched too thin, and they are already complaining in reports to the President that the tempo of operations cannot be sustained indefinitely. Troop withdrawals will probably soon commence for military, not political reasons. The erosion in materiel and manpower now exceeds the capacity of the system to replace it, and the surge has exacerbated the problem by further red-lining the military. Even if there was a sudden about-face on the US political front and we all magically decided to go all out and finish the war, we simply can't work up the suds to do it now. (Unless we have a draft, more taxes, etc).

Warner has extensive military affairs experience, he knows this, and I think he's offering Bush an out in order to salvage what he can of the war machine before it seizes up or slings a rod and requires a full overhaul to repair. He knows the only way this war will turn out the way we expected it to when we started it is if the Iraqi government can get its political shit together and unite the country's factions into providing security and order. Until that happens, no matter how successful US forces are militarily, they'll never be able to leave. It will be just like Viet Nam, we won't lose, but we won't be able to win, either. I agree, the Bush plan is now to just prolong the agony until the next President has to make the hard decisions. I think Warner is hip to this and he isn't going to let him get away with it.

In a way, it's a heartbreaker, because the new surge strategy is starting to show modest signs of working, reports of a turn-around are no longer limited to obscure right-wing blogs and White House mouthpieces, but local and limited successes are even being noted by administration critics and mainstream media outlets. We may have turned a corner here. But as always in this war, it's a case of too little, too late.

The situation is reminiscent of the Wehrmacht experience in World War II, in places like the Kasserine Pass and the Bulge, and to a greater extent, along the entire Eastern Front. Brilliant tactical successes on the battlefield evolved into strategic failures because poor planning on the political end failed to provide the resources to exploit initial victories. The tanks just ran out of gas within sight of the suburbs of Moscow.