What's New, Pussycat?

When it comes to the Bush administration's "Victory in Iraq" plan, released yesterday, the answer, of course, is nothing. As the Washington Post notes, the "new" plan was actually pieced together from "declassified portions of long-standing war plans." Same old shit, different day. On one level, however, it's "Mission Accomplished" for the White House, since I did hear reporters on TV last night talk about our "brand new plan" for winning the Iraq war. Kind of depressing, that.

Still, "new" isn't all there is — if the plan was solid, detailed, and realistic, that would be an improvement over what we've been spoon-fed so far. But, alas, it's nothing of the kind. Matthew Yglesias at Tapped sums it up rather nicely:

Now the way a normal planning document would work is that after having identified some challenges, you would explain the plan for meeting them. But the "detailed" section on the political track just ends right there and the discussion moves on to other things. Alleged signs of progress are noted in great detail, which is useful for propaganda purposes, but doesn't constitute a strategy. Then some problems are flagged. And then … nothing. Right where the strategy is called for, it goes blank.

Exactly. Much like the business plan created by South Park's Underpants Gnomes, the Bush plan seems to be:

1. Train Iraqi Troops
2. ???
3. Victory!

It's step 2 that gets you every time.