Where there's a Will, there's an op-ed

George Will is an interesting cat: a conservative who was quite doubtful about the wisdom of invading Iraq. In today's Washington Post, he offers an excellent analysis of both sides of the Washington battle to interpret and act upon the September Petraeus/White House report on the state of Iraq.

Consider this blurb:

One faction -- essentially, congressional Democrats -- is heavily invested in the belief, fervently held by the party's base of donors and activists, that prolonging U.S. involvement can have no benefit commensurate with the costs. The war, this faction says, is lost because even its repeatedly and radically revised objective -- a stable society under a tolerable regime -- is beyond America's military capacity and nation-building competence, and it is politically impossible given the limits of American patience.

The other faction, equal in anger and certitude, argues, not for the first time (remember the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq, Iraqi voters' purple fingers, the Iraqi constitution, the killing of Saddam Hussein's sons, the capture of Hussein, the killing of Zarqawi, etc.), that the tide has turned. How febrile is this faction? Recently it became euphoric because of a New York Times column by two Brookings Institution scholars...

One is left to wonder how much the report REALLY matters. Will it change anyone's mind about whether or not the US is succeeding there, or whether or not the US should stay? Read the whole op-ed.