TPM:

"Fred Kaplan has a bleak but, I fear, quite possibly accurate piece on Iraq today in Slate. The key sentence is this one: 'the U.S. military—the only force in Iraq remotely capable of keeping the country from falling apart—finds itself in a maddening situation where tactical victories yield strategic setbacks.'"

Marshall follows this with nine more paragraphs of earnest concern and sincere worry, illustrating the problem with a link to this.
"This is the essence of the present situation. For us Iraq has become the geopolitical equivalent of a Chinese finger puzzle, the more we exert ourselves the more the situation constricts around us and the higher the price becomes to get ourselves out, at least in any way that mainstream foreign policy types, among whom I would class myself, find acceptable."

He's in Kenneth Pollack mode again. Or is it Arthur Schlesinger?
I'm sorry, but the whole line is fucking obscene.