Last week Simon Jenkins, former editor of The Times (London), who now writes for the Sunday Times and the Guardian, visited Iraq. Go here to read what he has to say. His account is a telling rejoinder to the fables spun by those who call for the U.S. and Britain to stay on in Iraq through 2006 and beyond.

“The invasion was merely illegal. The occupation has been the most bafflingly inept venture undertaken by western powers in modern history. I tremble to think what Tony Blair and George Bush would have done with the cold war.”

Jenkins writes, “These men [Blair & co.] have left a British army stranded in an Arabian desert with no apparent exit and no control over its fate. Their only possible redemption is to withdraw that army (other than as advisers) when the next Baghdad government is installed in the new year. Iraq can then be left to the Iraqis. If the Americans want to stay, more fool them.”

Indeed, more fool them.