Does the administration really want peace?

A sobering piece by Robert Dreyfuss in TomPaine.com. Do you think Americans really understand this, and how many think it’s a good idea?

Although the Jordanian government prefers to maintain the polite fiction that Iraq’s resistance has no base in Jordan, it does. And Jordan’s rebuff of Iraq means that even this erstwhile American ally is prepared to challenge the U.S.-Iraqi regime of quislings in Baghdad.
Jordan’s stance makes it even clearer that no end to the fighting can occur until and unless an international conference is convened to involve Iraq’s neighbors (including Iran), the Arab League, and the United Nations (including Russia and China) in helping to stabilize Iraq politically. Part One of ending the war is a deal with the resistance, and Part Two is the internationalization of the peace. So far, there is not the slightest hope that the Bush administration is prepared to accept either. “We will stay. We will fight. And we will prevail,” Bush told troops at Fort Bragg on Sunday.
And if the leaked audio from an encounter between Secretary of State Condi Rice and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is any indication, the United States is stonewalling any international role in Iraq, too. When Lavrov suggested an international effort to help stabilize Iraq, Rice explicitly rejected the idea of other countries getting involved. . . . Rice . . . (like her boss) rejects anything that undermines U.S. primacy in Iraq. That, as President Bush indicates, means continued war. In a rare moment of candor, an American military man declared last week what continued war means. “It’s my belief that we are going to be in Iraq for a long time,” said Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey. “It’s open-ended.”

The most important element here? “[No] end to the fighting can occur until and unless an international conference is convened to involve Iraq’s neighbors (including Iran), the Arab League, and the United Nations (including Russia and China) . . . .” People may not like the idea of “cutting and running,” but do they think that means preventing international support for peace when it is the only possible way to achieve victory?