I just returned from a very depressing lecture at the UW. It was part of The New Yorker’s “college tour,” in which writers from the magazine speak on different college campuses, and today’s subject was “The Future of Iraq.”

Two New Yorker writers, Mark Danner and George Packer, who have both spent much time reporting in Iraq and writing about what they have found there, spoke for almost two hours. Their most oft-repeated phrase was: “The insurgency is not going to end any time soon.” (Their prediction for when it might end: 10 years from now.)

The good solutions they see for this problem: None.