"The consequences are dire".

So says the ISG report on the situation in Iraq.
One of the obvious recommendation is to find a way to get out. Echoes of "withdrawing with honor" from the Vietnam era.
Which soldier will be the last casualty. And what for?
Will Man ever learn?
Here is what Vera Brittan wrote about war, more than 70 years ago:

"In among the chaos of twisted iron and splintered timber and shapeless earth are the fleshless, blackened bones of simple men who poured out their red, sweet wine of youth unknowing, for nothing more tangible than Honour or their Country's Glory or another's Lust of Power. Let him who thinks the War is a glorious, golden thing, who loves to roll forth stirring words of exhortation, invoking Honour and Praise and Valour and Love of country with as thoughtless and fervid a faith as inspired the priests of Baal to call on their own slumbering deity, let him but look at a little pile of sodden grey rags that cover half a skull and a shinbone and what might have been its ribs or at its skeleton lying on its side, resting half crouching as it fell, perfect but that it is headless, and with the tattered clothing still draped round it; and let him realise how grand and glorious a thing it is to have distilled all Youth and Joy and Life into a foetid heap of hideous putrescence! Who is there who has known and seen who can say that Victory is worth the death of even one of these?"

Testament of youth. 1933