"Chinese Finger Puzzle"

Outstanding post by Josh Marshall in which, while reviewing a piece by Fred Kaplan in Slate, he compares the situation in Iraq to a Chinese finger puzzle, where the harder you try to get out, the more stuck you become. He notes that (paraphrasing Kaplan) every tactical victory is a strategic failure. Seems to me that’s a common theme of occupational forces involved in a quagmire. It certainly happened to us in Vietnam and to the Soviets in Afghanistan, and to the Brits in Iraq last century, and even for tactical covert victories (i.e., reinstalling Reza Pahlavi in Tehran in 1953). Trouble is, many observers saw this one coming. Why didn’t the president or his neocon henchmen? Maybe bush should read a book every now and again.