It's The War, Stupid

A sobering look at the Iraqi insurgency from CNN's Baghdad correspondent, Michael Ware-



Related reading from Anthony Shadid in Iraq: 'This is Baghdad. What could be worse?'

Meanwhile, equally sobering news from the war that the President all but cut and run from-

The conflict in Iraq is drawing fewer foreign fighters as Muslim extremists aspiring to battle the West turn their attention back to the symbolically important and increasingly violent turf of Afghanistan, European and US antiterrorism officials say.

The shift of jihadis to Afghanistan this year suggests that Al Qaeda and its allies, armed with new tactics honed in Iraq, are coming full circle five years after US-led forces ousted the Taliban mullahs...

Yep. Right back where we started from... except for a few thousand soldiers, billions of dollars, any military flexibility, and our international credibility and respect. We should never have had to come to this point. The Afghanistan issue should've been finished years ago, but the President decided to take a little detour and we've been stuck there ever since. And so, the larger mission, the one people actually supported, lays by the wayside, held together by a NATO coalition as stretched as our forces in Iraq. I am not sure what the exact solution is here, but I know we would have to be borderline psychotic to continue trusting our current leaders to handle it. Change. Accountability. Now... Please.

Finally, it appears we've lost many of the weapons sent to Iraq. I hate when that happens.

UPDATE: A thought-provoking cover story by Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria-
Rethinking Iraq: The Way Forward

The drawdown option: It is past time to confront reality. To avoid total defeat, we must reduce and redeploy our troops and nudge the Iraqis toward a deal. Here's how.

[PS- At least 100 Americans have been killed in Iraq this month alone. For what?]