The Reality Gap (or why Iraq is doomed to fail)

While almost every other rational foreign policy expert in the world has come to recognize that Iraq policy should now be driven by mitigating loss, this White House is still pursuing its preexisting plan.

The killer misunderstanding here, and I mean that literally, is that this White House has yet to accept that their current course has not worked and no longer matches the realities on the ground.

So long as policy is set separate from reality, there is no chance that its application will be effective, and the longer it's put off, the worse the choices will be.

With the Iraq Study Group report due on Wednesday, the Bush administration has notified allies that it will not budge on certain aspects of Iraq policy, whatever recommendations are put forth by the independent panel of 10 prominent Republicans and Democrats.

At a private briefing for diplomats this past Wednesday, State Department and National Security Council officials said they do not expect any major policy shifts to emerge from either a White House review or the bipartisan panel,....

Who exactly is advising the White House to maintain this course in the face of almost all educated, outside advice? And, perhaps more precisely, what has been their track record on Iraq predictions? Rice? Hadley? Cheney? There are no "new eyes."

Perhaps that's the reality gap.