In other words, the tangible is actually illusion.

Can’t say the same about blood and treasure, though. Or are you?

Jeeze.

Look, for all intents and purposes (except those of press parasites, war profiteers, and neocons standing for re-election), the Iraq War has been effectively over for the last two years.

Who won? Iran, of course, for the same sort of reasons that France won the Thirty Years’ War.

The only reason our troops are still there is because a plurality of the Shiite factions who are running most of Iraq these days want them there. After all, the United States was no end of help during the ethnic cleaning of Baghdad two years ago.

American soldiers can be very useful. If you’re a Shiite faction leader. They can be used for all sorts of unpleasant tasks that would otherwise cut into your own fighting strength, and make you unnecessarily hated by the other factions.

Our people are going to remain there until the Shiites decide they no longer have any real use for us. At which point, they will either pack up and leave, or they’ll be ejected, mostly dead. In the second case, of course, the cost’ll run into the hundreds of thousands of locals. At minimum.

But I don’t think that cost will matter very much to the people on top of the heap over there. It never has in decades past.