Those of you with a morbid interest in following what must surely be the death throes of the American adventure in Iraq might spend the necessary few minutes reading Peter Galbraith's latest trawl through the tea leaves. He offers at least two jaw-dropping moments: one, at the start of the piece, which is of the blackest black humour (if it wasn't so damned tragic); another, further on, of pure horror. (Also a seemingly bad apostrophe, which can be a cause of distress to some of us; we have never before seen a bad apostrophe in the NYRB.
Not so sure about his proposed exit strategy, however: withdrawal to Kurdish territory, whilst it might provide some comfort to the poor old Kurds, who have been perhaps America's staunchest, or only, allies, and who otherwise would appear poised for instant annihilation, surrounded as they are by large numbers of people who hate them, can surely only bring with it the same problems as have beset the Americans ever since they set foot in Iraq, only with a reduced footprint. Although, to be fair, one gets the impression he is proposing this not so much as a "good" solution as one that is marginally less fucked than all the others he can think of. Which may be all anybody can hope for.
