After the Republicans suffered probably their worst defeat in twelve years, old GW decided that may be things in Iraq were not actually going to plan and it was time to think about new options.
In a totally unsuprising move, our Ovine Prime Minister has come out a few days later and said the very same thing. This is just under a month after he stated that troops were there indefinetly. However, because George Bush has changed his mind, so must Blair.
In a show of some originality, Blair did entertain the idea of Iran and Syria. However as these are the very countries that form part of Bush's famed "Axis of Evil", I think the chances of this ever happening are slim to non-existent. And not solely for that reason.
Blair is missing one of the fundemental precepts that is causing the problems in Iraq: the Balkan war happened fundementally because the stabilising force (Tito) was no longer in power (actually he was dead) and Communism in the area was taking it's last breaths. The tribes were therefore free to start causing mayhem by extracting revenge on each other after years of oppression. Fast-forward a few years, and you have a similar situation to how it was in the Balkan states now in Iraq. The violence in Iraq is predominantly sectarian (Shi'a muslim vs. Sunni muslim), even though the numbers of security force personnel injured seems to be rising daily.
Finally, factor in that Syria is 75% Sunni muslim (like Saddam is) and Iran is about 85% Shi'a muslim, I don't think that Iraq will be peaceful anytime soon.
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