HATE It When That Happens

Boy, sometimes you fly all the way to Amman, Jordan, to meet with your pup-, er, I mean the prime minister of a sovereign country, and he snubs your ass. Just because your national security adviser called him clueless on the front page of the paper of record. Ouch. And you thought the war was a disaster. It's running smoothly compared to the diplomacy. Tonight, at least.

Update: No need for this courtesy "trilateral" meeting today, so not a snub.

"The situation in Iraq is what it is." So says State Department official Satterfield. And what it is . . . is a civil war.

Update 2: Richard Hass, one-time Prince of Darkness and former Bush administration State Department official, just said (on Hardball) that the "pick a winner" idea is one of the worst ideas he's heard in a long time. WOW. It must be a bad idea. I mean, it sounds like a bad idea, to me. But one of the worst ideas . . . in a long time? If I'm not mistaken, the actual decision to invade Iraq was not . . . a long time ago. So, then, "pick a winner" is about as bad an idea as invading Iraq. As I said, WOW.

Just to make this clear: The war was a mistake. At this point, even the supposed benefit of removing Saddam Hussein from power looks less beneficial. It was never really beneficial to the U.S. If you disagree, think about how much better off the U.S. was when regional power Iran was counter-balanced by Saddam. See what happens when you upset a balance of power? But it's really hard to believe, at this point, that the Iraqi people as a whole are even better off with Saddam gone. Certainly the hundreds of thousands of them that have died "excess deaths" over the pre-war death rate are not better off, and most indicators in Iraq are negative since "shock and awe." At this point, we have achieved nothing positive. (We have "achieved" much, if "achieve" can be coupled with the term "negative.")