The US has a pretty good record of falling into this trap. The Bush administration has so overused the Hitler analogy that it's almost demeaning to history.

There is a strategy for the insurgency, which is 'get out'. There is not a strategy to respond to a civil war, as far as I can see.

The Latin American populists like Chavez have a very limited capacity to do anything that threatens substantial harm to our interests, so it's key in those cases not to overreact.

It really does seem to me the war is stalemated in that the enemy, which has shown great resilience, cannot defeat us militarily, but neither do we have the capacity to eliminate the insurgency through military means.

They weren't going to win the war, and if they left tomorrow, they wouldn't lose the war.

Rejection would be a disaster for the U.S., but ratification alone will not end our problems in Iraq. Even if the constitution is ratified, the insurgents are not going to lay down their arms.