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Although we don't see much coverage of Yugoslavia, I think we are a lot farther along to better nation-building results in Iraq than in Kosovo etc where we still have troops and they are still arguing about boundaries, not implementing constitutions.

There is a huge fundamental flaw in his assertion that international organizations confer legitimacy. You cannot get legitimacy from illegitimacy. So, if Oil-for-Food sullied the UN it could not confer what he wants from it. When people call the UN a dictator's club, they point to the same flaw.

I read Paul Bremer's book, and Beinart really mischaracterizes the role played by Sistani. He may not have met with us, but he very definately played a pivotal role in leading Iraq and made his views known through channels frequently and reasonably. He is probably the most important man in the story, besides Bush.

This wedge issue bs is just that. They want no accountabiity for their unpatriotic, obstructionist positions. Call them on it and they call that a wedge issue.

Finally, why doe we let them get away with saying that Iraq has overstretched the military? That is ridiculous. The military that was built to fight 2 wars is overstretched by Iraq? 150,000 of 2 million personnel are there.

Although we don't see much coverage of Yugoslavia,

I'm contually surprised at the apparent lack of animus of the Serbs toward a country whose war strategy was to bomb civilian targets.