Here were the things I learned from O'Hanlon last December on NPR:
* 2007 is the "make or break year" during which we need "one last gasp" and "one last try"
* He supports escalation, but only if a bunch of things which aren't going to happen do happen, but on balance he supports escalation
* We were never able to implement the "clear, hold, and build" strategy which I know is a lie because The Last Honest Man told me he saw that it was working.
* I turned it off, so maybe he said it, but I didn't hear what we should do if two F.U.s from now things are still FUBAR
and:
Brookings' Michael O'Hanlon has informed us that "2007 will be make or break time in Iraq." Actually, that's not true, as tends to happen with this issue he informed us that it will "very likely" be "make or break time." A year from now we'll find out that no, 2008 is Pony Time. And O'Hanlon also tells us that if 2007 leans towards break instead of make, there are some wonderful New Ideas to try like, say, "a plan to help people to where they feel safer within the country." Which, once you run that through the Quiet American decoder ring, actually means "forced ethnic partition and mass relocation." Because once we do that there will surely be nothing to fight about anymore. Whatever.
And this is the Left Flank of acceptable elite discourse on the subject, almost 4 years after the dirty fucking hippies were proved fucking right.