Belfast on the Euphrates

Alex Massie has some very interesting thoughts on the light Northern Ireland's recent history sheds on the situation in Iraq. The bottom line, to me, is that if achieving a decent outcome in Iraq is possible, the path to that outcome involves what I would consider unacceptable costs for an unacceptably large amount of time. I'd say there's a reason the Iraq War is always sold as something that'll end in just another Friedman Unit or two -- if people had a sense of the duration being contemplated to execute our policies there, they'd have a fit. And rightly so. In earlier Iraq/Ireland analogy blogging, I'd recommend this (it's at the end) and especially this from Kieran Healy.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2007/12/belfast-on-the-euphrates/47372/