Survey Says: Long Bomb

Surprising absolutely no one, the Pentagon's Iraq Review has come up with what at first appears to be three options.

The Pentagon's closely guarded review of how to improve the situation in Iraq has outlined three basic options: Send in more troops, shrink the force but stay longer, or pull out, according to senior defense officials.

Of course, option one, also known as "Go Big", requires several hundred thousand new troops in Iraq. The commission, naturally, has rejected this option because the army simply cannot pull that many troops out of their ass - and never could.

Option three, cleverly labeled "Go Home", is naturally a no-go from the get-go because we all know that winners never quit and quitters never win.

So, we're left with option number two, which surprisingly turns out to be the precise strategy that we're currently following in Iraq, the aptly named "Go Long", "Hail Mary" or simply the "Long Bomb" strategy. In this strategy, the number of troops will be temporarily "surged" by 20K to 30K and we're going to pray to all we hold holy that the Iraqis will be able to take up the slack asap.

Thus, we're left with yet another strategy that will require careful planning, execution and spectacularly good luck.

"The 'Go Long' approach is one that can work if there is sufficient strategic patience, resources appropriated and [if] leadership executes effectively," a military intelligence official said.

I guess past performance would indicate that we are, as the saying goes, fucked.

The only minor consolation is that the serious people are finally going to get their Hail Mary (at the expense of who knows how many soldier's lives, of course). And afterwards, they'll have to come up with yet another serious policy suggestion after this latest "surge" bombs out like each and every single plan these jokers have implemented in the past.