Just a note to welcome my former colleague Andrew Levine to the blogosphere, in a blog named “Democrats Now“. His first post explores and explains why it will be so hard to defeat Clintonism within the Democratic Party, and his second delineates some of the mysteries of modern American politics (like, how on earth did the Republicans become Reds?), and makes a reasonable case that Monica Lewinsky saved social security. Andy’s a prolific and clever writer with a quirky sense of humour, and his blog will join the tiny handful that I read daily.

Mission accomplished or not, it’s time after four years to call a halt. Only after the governments of the Coalition countries admit that military power has failed, and that nothing good will be achieved by persevering can we make a serious assessment of what can be salvaged from this disaster.

The most important thing that can be done now is to help the millions of refugees who have fled the awful combination of invasion, insurgency and civil war the Coalition governments have unleashed upon them (noted blogger Riverbend just announced that she and her family would be joining the exodus, long after Allawi, Pachachi and others held out in the past as hopes of the nation). But clearly nothing will be done as long as policy is ruled by the delusion that victory is just a surge away.

There are plenty of other obstacles. Many of the refugees are in Syria, and any suggestion of co-operation with Syria is anathema. Even more importantly, any serious proposal to do something about refugees would involve a massive increase in the intake by members of the coalition countries, and (as I’ve found from previous discussions on my blog) the chickenhawks who pushed this war are utterly terrified by the risks this would involve, given that many of these refugees have little reason to love us. Even suggestions that we are obligated to rescue those who risked their own lives working for the Coalition are much too scary for these fighting keyboardists.

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