Bitter Baghdad

The New York Observer's Tish Durkin has been filing consistently fascinating reports from Iraq. Here's a snippet from her latest:

I?d still support the war?and so, I gather from months of putting the question, would most Iraqis. A year ago, when it invaded, the Bush administration did the right thing. But with astounding, relentless, marksman-like consistency, it has been doing the wrong thing ever since. Contrary to the cries of its critics, this long march of missteps has not occurred because the administration is full of flag-waving, U.N.-flouting, slogan-spouting cowboys. It is because the administration is, it is now painfully clear, utterly devoid of cowboys. A cowboy, after all, rides into hostile territory, fights the bad guys, helps the good guys, and protects the women and children. This administration rode in all right. Then they realized that the bad guys were really, really bad, that they did different kinds of bad things that required different kinds of responses, and that they were often hard to distinguish from the good guys.

Whole thing here.