Three on Iraq

First, there is this depressing report on civilian casualties in Iraq. The numbers are all going the wrong way.

Second is this post from Ross Douthat about the long term impact of Iraq, and how similar wars have affected the US and the British.

Last is this post from the Belmont Club. I haven't read that site in quite some time (it's a weird combination of gloom and optimism), but Wretchard does do sweeping phrases well. To wit:

Al-Qaeda, like all the evil vapors of the world through history, inevitably comes to resemble its predecessors. Soldiers of the dark eventually find themselves wearing the same livery. Flowers bloom in myriad ways, but evil, like pornography, is repetitive. It marches to same dull beat that all the Lost of the ages have heard call. Poor men, these al-Qaeda, they who would remake the world in their ostensibly new vision only to find it had been templated long ago by some sad and ancient corruption.