Whose isn't?

It also seems pretty clear that the current democracy in Iraq is unable to provide security, and seems barely able to insure its own survival.

True. But the first issue to address is whether _any_ form of gov't can consolidate control & provide security while the US maintains such an overwhelming presence on the ground.

As for Cheney, Rummy, and everyone else's hidden agendas, let me remind the assembled folk here that the administration's #1 choice to have been running Iraq right now was that tool Chalabi. As bad as things are over there, I have no trouble believing things would be worse now if that hack was running things for us.

Besides, if anyone wanted peace in that region to fail loudly, they'd just have to make sure the Kurds really did establish their own independent state right where they are in northern Iraq. The Turks would invade within a week, and then the whole region would fall to open warfare within 6 months.

Of course this would have made Turkey and Iran even more upset to see a free Kurdistan. And the Sunni's would have quickly become a client state of Syria.

But given that there are so many people saying the reform of the Arab world is so impossible anyway, I can't see setting it up to fail as being necessary.

We probably all agree that security is the prerequisite for all else in Iraq. It also seems pretty clear that the current democracy in Iraq is unable to provide security, and seems barely able to insure its own survival. The notion that serious people (especially of the conservative persuasion) may feel that a strong government clamping down on the chaos is a more pressing priority than a democracy (especially since the democratic spirit tends to unleash centrifugal forces) is not absurd.

Rumsfeld has never had the same agenda is the most hard-core neocons. He clearly has been driven by his vision of a transformed military - lean, agile, light, more like a global swat team. The Wolfowitz axis, while not explicitly pushing nation-building, have always had a vision that obviously demanded something akin to that. The alliance of these forces in support of the Iraq war rested on the fantasy that the Iraq invasion would be a "cakewalk" - Rumsfeld could demonstrate the capabilities of his lean military, then we would get out, and the Chalabi-types would be carried on the shoulders of the people to the presidential palace where they could institute the new democratic regime.

I think it fair to say that Rumsfeld would never go for nation-building, even if it became clearly necessary (he has resisted to this day, ANY increase in troop levels). It would be one thing if he simply acknowledge the falsity of the war premises, and agreed to the nation-building agenda. That would demonstrate that his highest priority was democritization. If you cant do it lean, then do it heavy. But that hasnt been the case. When reality struck, he stuck with his vision of a lean force, even at the expense of the political situation there. In short, it seems quite reasonable to conclude that he would see the chaos there as an example of how nation-building is a mistaken path. And he would prefer to let that lesson be absorbed, rather than to change his own mind and make the situation better.

That somebody in the administration is “considering alternatives” to any given preferred outcome is to be expected. Indeed, they’d be rightly excoriated for “lack of planning” if they weren’t doing some worst-case brainstorming. Could the sectarian violence in Iraq topple the fragile elected government?

Oh come on! We shouldn't put ANY stock in what an anonymous source says in the liberalest of the liberal newspapers.

This quote was surely fabricated or said by someone who doesn't know what they are talking about.

Bush said yesterday that "If we leave [Iraq] before the mission is complete, if we withdraw, the enemy will follow us home."

It is clear that he recognizes the fact that if we leave Iraq, both the Shiite militias and Sunni extremists will put on hold their domestic internecine battles to come to the US and try and terrorize us.

If we don't make sure the current government holds sway, the outcome will be Muqtada al -Sadr's Madhi Army moving from Sadr City to our shores in their perennial battle against freedom.

The issue here is that Iraq is the front line in the war on terrorism. If we take the Defeat-ocrat strategy we will suffer immensely.

I've never agreed with much Sully has written in the past, but lately he's been starting to sound downright unhinged.

Then Cheney and Rumsfeld could prove their point about the impossibility of reforming the Muslim world, and promote the view that we need merely to pummel enemies, project military fear across the region, and deter Islamo-fascism by “shock and awe.”

...all to promote oil profits and the future success of Haliburton and Co...

Mmmmwah ha ha ha ha (maniacal laughter).

(Darth Vader voice) Soon, my plan will be complete...