The view from the other side of the pond

From an editorial in the UK Guardian Unlimited:

Support for the surge is draining in Washington by the week. Republican members of Congress who once stood by Mr Bush are defecting. The Senate is in the middle of debating a series of motions aimed at constraining the president's hand as commander in chief. They may come to nothing, as not even the Democrat majority want to go for the jugular by voting to cut funding for Mr Bush's extra troops.

The defections and the motions all serve to isolate a president already in retreat. Mr Bush will do well to make it through on his current course to September, when General Petraeus is due to report back to Congress. Few in Iraq believe the situation can be turned around by then. The president's denial about the reality of Iraq stops any progress being made. It also stops policy makers developing a cogent plan for withdrawal. The president will sit out the unfolding disaster until his term of office expires. Insurgents and militias will sit out the unfolding disaster until the Americans leave. The one benchmark certain to be kept is that Iraqi civilians too poor to flee the country will keep on dying.