There Will Be No Ponies

Yglesias has it exactly right about the failure of the current crop of presidential candidates in both parties:

In both political and policy terms, I think all of the candidates should consider that in the real world they need not Iraq policies that will make sense in the fall of 2007, but Iraq policies that will make sense in January 2009 after over a year of additional political stalemate in Iraq, continued bloodshed and refugee flows, and continued deterioration of the readiness of the American military.

Atrios' take on that same point is more simply stated: There will be no ponies. Only "lots more dead, maimed, and displaced Iraqis."