The (Ex) Washington Realist

Steve Simon and Ray Takeyh are drawing a good deal of heat for their Outlook piece in Sunday's Washington Post. Of course, it seems many have focused on the provocative title ("We've Lost"), but not too many have disputed what I think are the two critical assessments in the body of the piece:

"Iraq has no credible central government that U.S. forces can assist and no national army for them to fight alongside. U.S. troops can't beat the insurgency on their own; our forces are too few and too isolated to compete with the insurgents for the public's support. Meanwhile, the country's militias have become a law unto themselves, and ethnic cleansing gallops forward.

"But the most crucial reason why the war is lost is that the American people decisively rejected continuing U.S. military involvement last November. As far as the voters are concerned, the kitchen is closed."

I don't see much support at home for the decade-long commitment General Petraeus implied is needed, and the U.S. cannot force an Iraqi government to do what it doesn't want to do--a point I raised last week.