Henry C. K. Liu, AsiaTimes: As Rome did, the U.S. is butting up against the limits of power:

There is no point in winning the war to lose the peace. Military power cannot be used without political constraint, which limits its indiscriminate application. The objective of war is not merely to kill, but to impose political control by force. Therein lies the weakest part of the US war plan to date. The plan lacks a focus of what political control it aims to establish. The US has not informed the world of its end game regarding Iraq, beyond the removal of Saddam Hussein. The idea of a US occupational governor was and is a laughable non-starter.

Guerilla resistance will not end even after the Iraqi government is toppled and its army destroyed. Drawing upon British experiences in Malaysia and Rhodesia, the force ratio of army forces to guerilla forces needed for merely containing guerilla resistance, let alone defeating a guerilla force, is about 20 to 1. US estimates of the size of Iraq's guerilla force stands at 100,000 for the time being. This means the US would need a force of 2 million to contain the situation even if it already controls the country.

At the current rate of war expenditure at $2.5 billion a day, the war budget of $75 billion will be exhausted after 30 days, or until April 20, ten days before the projected arrival of all reinforcements to the front.