Can't stop, won't stop

A suicide bomber killed five American soldiers yesterday in Baghdad. This writeup in the New York Times covers all the bases -- worst attack in months, security situation remains fragile, etc -- but buries the most interesting graf in the middle of the article. Check it out:

Military officials did not release details of the attack or explain how the suicide bomber was able to approach the soldiers so easily. But an Iraqi Army officer at a checkpoint near the site of the bombing said the suicide bomber was a young man who had walked up to the soldiers and engaged them in conversation. "He came and stood beside them and started talking to them and then detonated himself," the officer said.

The upshot here? There's just no good way to fight a counterinsurgency war. After last summer's ethnic cleansing, the administration promised us a smarter, nimbler strategy to quell the violence: fewer air strikes and midnight raids, more boots on the ground, more finesse. But as long as American troops are in Iraq, there will be Iraqis trying to kill them. Period. We can dial up our troop presence, dial it back, relax our "force posture" or get more aggressive, and it won't make much difference in the long run.