The revolt against Rumsfeld

In today's Washington Post, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Richard Holbrooke argues that "[t]he calls by a growing number of recently retired generals for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have created the most serious public confrontation between the military and an administration since President Harry S. Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1951".

Predictably, Bush has defended Rumsfeld, but Holbrooke contends that the case for replacing him is "overwhelming". Truman was right then, the generals are right now. The U.S. simply cannot deal properly and effectively with the ongoing situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor with the emerging crisis in Iran, nor with the war on terror more broadly, nor with whatever other global hotspots may require military involvement of some kind, such as Darfur, under the cloud of such an obvious lack of confidence in the Pentagon's civilian leadership.

Rumsfeld certainly isn't the only one to blame for what's gone wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his departure wouldn't solve any of these problems, not with his own boss still in office.

But it'd be a start.