But be careful of swinging into just another “patriotically correct version”

Sir, of course “nations and individuals do not grow weaker by confronting the truth” as Jacob Weisberg argues in his “Iraq: the patriotically correct version”, March 8, but sometimes it is wiser to lay low with the truth, before you have figured out what to do, after the truth is out. Otherwise truth could be like only rubbing the salt in, for no particular good political reason at all, and could even make things much worse when everyone starts panicking for the door.

Dov Sakheim with “Why America should operate from Iraq’s borders” FT January 5 and James Fearon with “U.S. Can’t win Iraq’s civil war”, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2007, are both making the point that there could be benefits in retiring the troops a bit and allow (force) the Iraqis to work out their own solutions, and as they must do if they want to have ownership of their own destiny. This alternative seems a possible way out, but its chances to succeed would obviously be so much better if the US hang around for a while, for instance at the borders, for if it went a hundred times more haywire than it will as a minimum go, and not having because of an untimely truth retired the young soldiers back to Kansas, from where no one will get them out for ages, because of just another new patriotically correct answer.