Anyone interested in a serious, nuanced and sober analysis of Iraq -- what went wrong and what might still go right -- may wish to take a look at the attached paper from Anthony Cordesman at CSIS. It is over 300 pages long but is packed with information and fine judgment. It has a particularly well-calibrated analysis of the difference between "victory" and "defeat" and how one may merge into the other. If I had to quibble, I would say that there is a just a flavor of "next time we'll do it better" about the analysis (CSIS was, sadly, not airing these views before the invasion) but otherwise this is likely to become a standard work of reference.

The paper is available at http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/051129_iraqforcedev.pdf