A breakdown of order is what one expects from the arbitrary exercise of inadequate power. If one were really engaged in diplomacy rather than arbitrary and unprincipled aggression as a foreign policy, our regime wouldn't be limited to the inadequacies of the raw exercise of destructive power which ultimately meets its match.

I'm surprised that none of the so called analysts concerning mideast affairs understand that chaos is an indigenous applied principle in power struggles in Baghdad. Great game faction playing by a poorly informed outsider with a limited time and resource horizon has little chance of success, except to keep the chaos going. It can't even be said at this point that the bush regime even has a license or the ability at this point to do anything definitive about what goes on in Iraq. At some point it will forced out, the longer we stay, the more complete the expulsion.

It is ironic that our regime, which is despotic and unprincipled in its own right, abandoned international law, early on in its belligerent foreign policy and is now limited to the raw exercise of power. It has hamstrung itself. The operation of death squads with the public pretense of obeying human rights and international law (or any system of social mores) had more chance of success (if murder as a policy can be characterized as successful) than what we have done and are doing in Iraq. In other words, the presence of the military there is complete surplusage. However, Iraq is not El Salvador or Nicaragua and won't even yield to this. The Iraqis are the masters of chaos in their own world. We are too far away and too illegitimate to change that.

The notion that we are engaged in dialogue with Iran is laughable. The joke here is that someone assumes that our government is acting in good faith.