"So, how's the New American Century going, anyway?"

"So, how's the New American Century going, anyway?" That was how Stephen Colbert began his interview with Neocon prince, William Kristol.

A good answer to that can be found in this lucid analysis of the Iraq War by UPI's Martin Sieff:

Eye on Iraq: Adrift in a complex war

By MARTIN SIEFF, UPI Senior News Analyst

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- U.S. policymakers and forces in Iraq are now adrift in a complex, many-sided war and the democratic political system that was the centerpiece of U.S. strategy is collapsing before Washington's eyes.

Mahmoud al-Mashadani, the speaker of the Iraqi parliament, warned deputies Wednesday morning they might only have three or four months to prevent the irreversible collapse of their country and its splintering into mutually hostile religious and ethnic enclaves. 'We have three to four months to reconcile," he said. "If the country doesn't survive, it goes under."

Mashadani's warning came the day after the parliament voted to continue the emergency powers of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for another month and as violence and terror continued to erupt on all sides.

Applying a relatively rational analysis, several overlapping conflicts are currently raging simultaneously in Iraq.

First, the long-running, three-and-a-half-year-old Sunni insurgency against U.S, forces and the new Iraqi government continues unabated in two western provinces and in the capital Baghdad. As our companion "Iraq Benchmarks" has confirmed, despite other conflicts erupting one very side the Sunni insurgents have been able to keep up their level of attrition attacks and rates of inflicting casualties on U.S, forces through this year.

Second, since the bombing of the al-Askariya, or Golden Mosque, in Samara in Feb, 22, Shiite militia forces have reacted with much greater force against the general Sunni community, launching campaigns of random killings. The focus of this conflict has been also in and around Baghdad, and in central provinces with mixed Sunni and Shiite populations.

Third, at the prompting of U.S, leaders and military commanders, the shaky new Iraqi army -- intended to eventually function at a full strength of 10 divisions -- has launched a series of campaigns against some of the Shiite militias, especially Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army, to try and get them under control.

However, the performance of regular Iraqi forces, who are generally Shiite commanded and dominated by Shiites, has so far been very disappointing and in some recent clashes they have had to rely on the Badr Brigades, another Shiite irregular militia force, for support.

Therefore, far from asserting the control and credibility of the regular Iraqi army over the Shiite militias as U.S. commanders intended, the recent campaigns have weakened its standing still further and made it appear a mere cats-paw in a fourth struggle, that between the Mahdi Army, and the Badr Brigade, with other quasi-independent Shiite militias either allied to them or watching closely to see which of them comes out on top.

Nor do these four conflicts -- the Sunni insurgency against U.S. and allied forces, the Sunni-Shiite conflict, the Iraqi army battle with the Shiite militias and the internal struggles between the Shiite militias -- exhaust the number of potential conflicts in Iraq.

The Kurds look likely to try and fully secede from the central government in Baghdad and that could open up a new conflict between them and the Shiite dominated Maliki government. In addition, anti-American Shiite militias led by the Mahdi Army could erupt in revolt at any time against U.S. forces as well as the Maliki government and threaten to cut the crucial overland supply route from Kuwait to Central Iraq that is essential to provision the 140,000 U.S. troops in the country.

Bush's solution? Hang on until the mid-term elections then attack more countries.