John Robb has a good post on the inevitable failure of our clear and hold strategy in Iraq. When I mentioned in my little critique of Bush's "Strategy for Victory" that Clear and Hold weren't going to work as military strategies, this is what I was talking about.

The bottom line is that this can't really create order. A secondary downer is that the transition from US forces to Iraqi forces in the "hold" portion will likely exacerbate the violence in the short term.

In the long term, though, that's the only way. We've got to leave and we've got to leave soon. Iraq will never be remotely peaceful (or even orderly/stable) as long as US troops are stationed there.