A farewell to 'glorious' war

In recent days, Italy's government fell after losing a parliamentary vote on the country's troop deployment in Afghanistan, while Britain and Denmark announced that they are to begin withdrawing their troops from Iraq. Whereas the Bush administration is deploying an additional 21,000 American soldiers in Iraq, and is pushing for more allied troops in Afghanistan, America's allies are rejecting its Middle East policy. They are increasingly convinced that "victory" will be elusive in any asymmetric conflict between states, however powerful, and religiously driven armed insurgents.