Finally. Its been awhile waiting for someone to point out the obvious about the Bush/Blair regimes and the fact that the United States can’t give up on Iraq because it absolutely positively must have their oil on the market. This is a refreshingly well-written post, too.

Powell adds that more troops, more country boys from the National Guard, effectively, will not reverse a “grave and deteriorating” situation. Having been elbowed from the corridors of power for knowing more about soldiering than Rumsfeld, vice-president Dick Cheney, or the draft-dodger in the Oval Office, the former general is entitled to a certain satisfaction. Such is not his demeanour. To paraphrase: things are bad, getting worse, and won’t be fixed with still more casualties.

A rational White House might pause at that. A president marking time until the constitution evicts him from Pennsylvania Avenue might even decide to quit while he’s behind, and perhaps ameliorate a little of the vast damage he has caused. Be serious: this is the boy George. Despite the damning judgement of American voters, despite the slaughter, despite the failure to quell terrorism, and despite the conclusions of Pop’s old pal, Jim Baker, and the elders of the Iraq Study Group, he cleaves to an astounding conclusion. He still thinks he’s right. George, one suspects, would give a goofy grin at the prospect of Armageddon itself.

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If any of this is true, and it seems more likely by the day, a couple of conclusions are obvious. First, Bush means for America to remain in Iraq for many years to come. At this rate, he will unite all the warring factions against the stars and stripes. Secondly, if the US stays, Britain stays: Tony Blair has welded every British interest to American policy.

The anti-war movement did not quite think this one through, after all. There was a want, if you like, of historical memory, and a failure to take Bush and Blair at their words. They said that their war could last for unspecified generations. We marched up and down for a while and then went home. We did not quite grasp the scale of the thing. Yet if Bush now puts more troops into Iraq, Britain will somehow match the commitment and the “long haul” will begin to seem endless. That should be cause for another protest or two.

We forget about actions and consequences. Blair has changed Britain in ways most of us have yet to notice, far less understand.

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America could afford Vietnam. It cannot afford Iraq when Russia is turning carbon fuels into weapons, China is at the table and the Saudis are heading the way of all corrupt, mendacious regimes. In the end, the truth is slightly disorienting: for once, this pair were not lying. They meant what they said about endless wars. They intend to fight in Iraq, and across the globe, for a very long time to come. Short of uprisings in Britain and the US, that counts as the future, yours and mine.

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