THE IRAQI ARMY, RECONSIDERED. Paul Bremer's defense of the decision to dismantle the Iraqi Army -- which is also a rebuttal to Bush's claims that the decision was made without his knowledge -- is fairly effective at demonstrating that the move's catastrophic impact may be obvious in retrospect, but wasn't necessarily clear at the time. And Bremer even makes a compelling case that leaving the Iraqi Army intact would've had disastrous consequences, too.

But that's just the thing: This was an impossible mission that failed not because of mere bureaucratic bungling, but because it was an impossible mission. The very same issues that led to the dismantling of the army -- inter-ethnic tensions, lack of trust between Sunnis and Shi'ites, inability to verify that the units would have national rather than sectarian loyalties -- are the very same issues that have continued to confound and obviate America's best efforts. The future of Iraq is not a question of American strategy, but Iraqi unity. And you can't force unity. You can only temporarily unite warring parties against yourself.

--Ezra Klein