The American Century Mein Kampfers are resourceful

Kevin Drum makes the point that maybe war opponents should go along with the escalation in Baghdad:

So we're not quite sure what we're going to do with them, but after meeting with the new SecDef we're suddenly quite sure we need them. Another courageous moment for our military leadership.
Still, honesty compels me to say that I'm glad this is going to happen. I know this makes me a bad person with no concern for human life etc. etc. (feel free to expand on this sentiment in comments), but at some point we have to come to a conclusion on this stuff. Conservatives long ago convinced themselves against all evidence that we could have won in Vietnam if we'd only added more troops or used more napalm or nuked Hanoi or whatever, and they're going to do the same thing in Iraq unless we allow them to play this out the way they want. If they don't get to play the game their way, they'll spend the next couple of decades trying to persuade the American public that there was nothing wrong with the idea of invading Iraq at all. We just never put the necessary resources into it.
Well, screw that. There's nothing we can do to stop them anyway, so give 'em the resources they want. Let 'em fight the war the way they want. If it works -- and after all, stranger things have happened -- then I'll eat some crow. But if it doesn't, there's a chance that the country will actually learn something from this.
I wish it were otherwise. But it isn't.

It’s hard not to react sympathetically to this, but it may not matter. They will whine about not trying hard enough no matter what is done. They will blame liberals and the press for not allowing enough resources anyway – for setting it up so that, by the time this was done, it was all they could do. Remember, we had 550,000 in Viet Nam, and the nutcase warmongers still spout the stab-in-the-back theories.