"If we are to receive the blessings God wants to bestow upon us, we must be willing to give Him the messes in our lives."

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Any outside use of military power would at best furnish a temporary respite from the processes that we see playing out. We know that because we have been through all this before. The "surge" of several years ago was supposed to provide space and time for Iraqi political interests to work out their differences. 30,000 additional U.S. troops failed to lead to any working out of those differences, and the outcome is the mess we see today.

— Paul R. Pillar