I was asked in a post on Iraq what I thought the solution is, if it’s not ‘stay the course’. I’d love to be able to tell you it’s ‘cut and run’, to use an equally empty phrase. In fact I’d love to be able to tell you it was pretty much anything, including ‘stay the course’. Unfortunately I can’t, because nothing springs to mind, and not just my mind either.

The sad fact is that there is no solution that will make a difference in the next decade. If we stay we kill more innocent Iraqis, increase resentment in the area and worldwide, and Al Qaeda wins while we go slowly broke. If we leave, Iraq is even more likely than it already is to descend into chaos, and Al Qaeda wins. Either way we store up 20 years or more of trouble for ourselves. And trying to organize policy decades into the future is a fool’s errand – 20 years ago Saddam was our friend. Unfortunately we have no shortage of fools.

My choice would be to bring the soldiers home – we’re damned either way, so why not have them at home? – but it’s no solution.

*A newly-American friend can’t say solution without sounding like Sean Connery. This is my tribute to her