Four years old

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/061030ta_talk_packer

So, the four year-old war is lost. And the words "sectarian violence" -- a poor and overused euphemism for a full-fledged civil war several months old-- can be jettisoned. The rest of the world sees it plainly while we, and our noosed media, are just getting here.

As George Packer says in the latest New Yorker:
"The President’s Iraq war is lost. Plan A—a unified and democratic Iraq that will be a model in the region—is no longer achievable. The civil war for which the Administration will not consider new responses is already at hand. Because no one in power can admit any of this, the United States is in the position of trying to hold still while the ground shifts violently underfoot. The resistance to thinking about Plans B, C, and D means not only that this country remains stuck while Americans and Iraqis die but that its ability to affect events six or twelve months away is rapidly diminishing."

And here, a desperate plea cloaked in detached commentary. It could almost provide a reader hope, if only Packer was running the country.

"Every one of the proposals coming from outside the real Administration starts from the assumption that its policy has failed. Plans B, C, and D are also admissions of defeat. They are an acknowledgment that our highest interests in Iraq no longer involve the welfare of Iraqis. For anyone who had hoped that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would bring a better life to Iraq’s people, these are hard truths to accept. But they also suggest that between the President’s resolve to persist in folly and the public’s instinct to be rid of Iraq there is a range of choices that could prevent the disaster from inflicting permanent damage on American interests. This kind of clear, rational thought is less heartless—even, in the end, less defeatist—than willful blindness."