AlterNet takes a good look at Bush's attempts to use the UN to solve his problems in Iraq. After pointing out that "at least one half of the Bush administration – led by the Cheney-Rumsfeld gang – appears to be working to thwart any genuinely viable solution," the article examines the near-impossible challenge facing Kofi Annan's special representative, Lakhdar Brahimi.

"There is a genuine, but rapidly diminishing chance that the United States can clamber out of the hole that it has dug for itself. In order to make the most of its odds, the White House has to give up its neoconservative pipe dreams of an elected Iraqi government that will kiss and make up with Israel, leave OPEC, and offer the U.S. Middle East bases in perpetuity.

The idea of the Bush administration ceding so much ground may seem like a pipedream, but the alternative is a very real nightmare. "