Worth it?

Nearly all of the commentary you hear on the news about Iraq, comes from talking heads who knew nothing about the middle east prior to the invasion. Jonah Goldberg is a great example. Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC - all the same. They are professional commentators - not history and regional scholars.

They are complete idiots.

Professor Juan Cole is one of those "smart - liberal - elite" types, as the wingers would say. His PhD is in history - not English lit. He has studied Iraq and the greater middle east for over 20 years. He's an exceptional scholar. In other words, he knows what he's talking about.

His new column is a must read, just so you know what lies ahead.

He opens with:

Sometimes You are Just Screwed

Readers occasionally write me complaining that I do not offer any solutions to the problems in Iraq. Let me just step back from the daily train wreck news from the region to complain back that there aren't any short-term, easy solutions to the problems in Iraq.

The US military cannot defeat the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement any time soon for so many reasons that they cannot all be listed.

and closes with

Therefore, I conclude that the United States is stuck in Iraq for the medium term, and perhaps for the long term. The guerrilla war is likely to go on a decade to 15 years. Given the basic facts, of capable, trained and numerous guerrillas, public support for them from Sunnis, access to funding and munitions, increasing civil turmoil, and a relatively small and culturally poorly equipped US military force opposing them, led by a poorly informed and strategically clueless commander-in-chief who has made himself internationally unpopular, there is no near-term solution.

In the long run, say 15 years, the Iraqi Sunnis will probably do as the Lebanese Maronites did, and finally admit that they just cannot remain in control of the country and will have to compromise. That is, if there is still an Iraq at that point.

And in between is the news that you probably don't want to know about, or probably don't care about, because you're not in Iraq, and you don't know anybody who is.

And you just don't like to hear bad news...