The greater the desperation...

The more he's flip flopping away.

"I don't think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world."

George W. Bush, Today Show, 8/30/04

"But make no mistake about it, we are winning and we will win."

George W. Bush, American Legion Convention, 8/31/04

I guess the confusion is understandable. No one else can make much sense out of Bush's 'War on (some) terror' policy either. One thing is clear, though. Whatever the possible outcome of the WOST may be, we're losing battle after battle in Iraq, and giving up more and more ground.

In the wake of the siege that has now established Najaf as a 'no-go' zone for American forces, the New York Times carried this dispatch.

While American troops have been battling Islamic militants to an uncertain outcome in Najaf, the Shiite holy city, events in two Sunni Muslim cities that stand astride the crucial western approaches to Baghdad have moved significantly against American plans to build a secular democracy in Iraq.

Both of the cities, Falluja and Ramadi, and much of Anbar Province, are now controlled by fundamentalist militias, with American troops confined mainly to heavily protected forts on the desert's edge.

****

The situation across Anbar represents the latest reversal for the First Marine Expeditionary Force, which sought to assert control with a spring offensive in Falluja and Ramadi that incurred some of the heaviest American casualties of the war, and a far heavier toll, in the hundreds, among Falluja's resistance fighters and civilians. The offensive ended, mortifyingly for the marines, in a decision to pull back from both cities and entrust American hopes to the former Baathists. ...

Lambert at Corrente adds a chilling note.

Note that the stories are datelined "BAGHDAD," meaning that Najaf and Fallujah are probably too dangerous for reporters to travel to. Implying that the situtation is, if anything, worse than described in this article.

The situation is, in fact, FUBAR.