"to enter into a de facto partnership with them"

I figure the 'toon says what we fear, but the article quoted in the title says what has the most chance of resolving U.S. presence - both in the short and long term - in the Gulf of Persia.

[Link] One military official close to the group's discussions said that one option could combine encouraging talks with Iran and Syria with shifting the U.S. military focus away from combat and toward training the Iraqi forces.

But members of the commission have expressed concern that working with Iran and Syria could require America "to enter into a de facto partnership with them," with possible trade-offs, said the official, who requested anonymity because the group's discussions have not been made public.

U.S. leaders, meanwhile, continue to debate how long and how many troops to keep in Iraq.

Regardless of whose agendas are on the line, America and the Middle East have gotta communicate better to get over this shit already. Israel's not gettin' abandoned as a state, and America doesn't pay enough for oil for anyone's good health. After those two apparent intractables, everything else is cultural "tourism".

Until we figure out how to get past them, it's just more war.