What do we do? We send the Marines...

...For might makes right,
And till they've seen the light,
They've got to be protected,
All their rights respected,
'Till somebody we like can be elected.

Tom Lehrer

What is clear is that this potentially decisive showdown began when and where it did because of serious lapses in the American military command structure in Iraq. As The Times reported earlier this week, the confrontation began when a newly arrived Marine Expeditionary Unit in Najaf started skirmishing with Moktada al-Sadr's Shiite militia without its officers first clearing that decision with top American commanders in Baghdad or with Iraqi political leaders.

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This is not the first time a newly arrived Marine unit has rushed into a confrontation that was not thought through enough. Roughly the same thing happened last April in Falluja. The ultimate result was a costly American pullback that left the city a haven for insurgents. Americans now have to ask why the right lessons were not learned from that debacle and applied in Najaf. The fault lies less with the Marine Corps, which is, after all, trained to be America's most gung-ho fighting force, than with the faulty chain of command that left this politically sensitive decision in their hands.

Of course, if the Marines are trained to be America's most gung-ho fighting force, it's incumbent on their officers, and perhaps especially their field commanders, to be America's most disciplined. It's exactly because the Marines are trained to enter battle with almost reckless abandon, placing their mission above even their lives, that they should only be dispatched for the most clearly defined, carefully planned and fully justified missions.

Given the bellicose rhetoric, absence of sound planning and ill-concieved missions that are typical of the highest levels of command, though, including the Commander In Chief and his Secretary of Defense, qualities that have driven out the best of our General officer corps and replaced them with sychophantic clerks, it's not surprising that field discipline has collapsed with such disasterous results.
And what are the results of our latest misadventure in Najaf? Muqtada is still at large, his supporters still hold the Imam Ali shrine, and his hand appears stronger than ever.

Sadr City appeared more supportive of Sadr on Saturday than it did before the U.S. sweep and the Najaf standoff. Because much of the cleric's appeal to poor Shiites has been his willingness to stand up to the Americans, the U.S. operations here and in Najaf have only served to rally support for him. That is all the more true in Sadr City, where the Americans appeared to have received little or no help from Iraqi security forces or police.

"What he's doing in Najaf makes us stronger," said Khalid Jassim, a 39-year-old tailor who was talking with friends at a car repair shop as the sun set. "Everybody now is part of the Mahdi army."

FUBAR. Completely.

And if there's anything worse than what they've done to my Army, it's what they've done to my father and brother's Marine Corps.