I'm a little verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic: John Kerry is to international relations as Nick Carr is to information technology. Discuss.

Iraq policy is now increasingly a response to developments on the ground there and the vagaries of our domestic politics. Ending the Arab-Israel conflict would have far more influence on transforming the Arab world than creating a new Iraqi government.

Knowing what we now know about Iraq, one could make the argument that we would have been better off if we had spent only a fraction of the hundreds of billions our Iraq venture will end up costing us in bribing Arabs and Israelis into a settlement and enforcing it.

The best that can be said with some certainty is that to stay or leave Iraq is going to be messy, costly and engage our energies and public discussion for a long time to come.

Here is the full text of the article by Morton Abramowitz that was mentioned recently.