Bob:

I've been lost in a particular assignment for the last few weeks (and next month), but I just wanted to say that, while there are plenty of smart folks on this Board, including in issues way outside of my expertises, your inscrutible wisdoms always end up flowing to my lane.

MikeF has a link going on TRADOC education, and in the back of my mind, I was thinking about your comments on the Civil Rights movement, etc... Once you have truly immersed into a few deep blood-letting domestic policy issues, you really understand what you are talking about re:interfering in domestic conflicts with your next door neighbor.

Tom Ricks is still covering Iraq; The Unraveling against the growing perception that Iran is exercising increasing influence on Iraq. In fact, on so many levels, that is a difference without a distinction to many residents of much of these historically intertwined countries, which, like close relatives, can sometimes find themselves drunk after a big family dinner and with guns drawn in the driveway.

In so many of our conflict areas, these kinds of underlying conflict risks are not going to be resolved, just minimized or managed when they can be. And get out of the way (give up control) when the big waves come.

Like Iraq, our continued presence and influence, if unchecked by SOFA, would have been increasingly problematic if we were still there today, just being americans, but parked in the middle of their street.

Figuring this stuff out at the "street" level is an important viewpoint to grasp and plan what we are trying to do, and how to do it.

Steve