Come Hither, Yon

Lots of pro-war blogs are linking to this Michael Yon piece.

Yon is brave and calls them like he sees them. He used the forbidden term (among war supporters) "civil war" long before it was fashionable. His piece describes the eve of the battle in vivid terms.

I've become persuaded that both the over-hyped WMD threat and the Wilsonian rationales for the initial intervention were mistaken, and a consistent anti-interventionism is our best foreign policy approach. Now that we're in Iraq, victory (whatever that means--and that's part of the problem) is for me preferable to defeat.

I suppose victory now means a régime in power that has some continuity with the elected government after we draw down our forces, and jihadis are not a major part of the mix. Defeat means Al Qaeda, Ba'athist, or Sadrist rule in Iraq, or a failed state. Whether victory in that sense is now possible, given our domestic politics as well as the military situation, is far from clear. (We're not going to put in half a million men, mostly draftees, and stay there for 15 years, although nothing could prevent it if we chose to do so).

Meanwhile, Yon has a vivid take on the military situation on the ground.