Recommended Reading: The Iraq Edition

Two recommended links today, both on that never-ending war of ours.

First up, from Mother Jones: Iraq 101

It's broken up into 5 parts... (1) Iraq 101: From Allawi to Zarqawi (Players, Haters: Iraqi Politics at a Glance); (2) Civil War: Lost In Translation (Things Fall Apart: The Iraqi Civil War FAQ); (3) The Cost: Paying The Price (Down The Drain); (4) Aftermath: Long-term Thinking (Breaking the Army; The Iraq Effect: The War in Iraq and Its Impact on the War On Terrorism); and (5) Sources.

Good bathroom reading if you really need some time to work it out.

Secondly, from Rolling Stone: Beyond Quagmire-
A panel of experts convened by Rolling Stone agree that the war in Iraq is lost. The only question now is: How bad will the coming explosion be?

The panel? Zbigniew Brzezinski (National security adviser to President Carter), Richard Clarke (Counterterrorism czar from 1992 to 2003), Nir Rosen (Author of 'In the Belly of the Green Bird', about Iraq's spiral into civil war, speaking from Cairo, where he has been interviewing Iraqi refugees), Gen. Tony McPeak (retired-- Member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War), Bob Graham (Former chair, Senate Intelligence Committee), Chas Freeman (Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War; president of the Middle East Policy Council), Paul Pillar (Former lead counterterrorism analyst for the CIA), Michael Scheuer (Former chief of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit; author of 'Imperial Hubris'), Juan Cole (Professor of modern Middle East history at the University of Michigan)

Their assessment? "Humpty Dumpty can't be put back together again."

[UPDATE: Jacob Weisberg writes about 'The Four Unspeakable Truths' of the war in Slate.]