The New Yorker accompanies George Packer’s article predicting that, in the light of American success in pacifying Iraq subsequent to his attacks on Hillary from the left in the primaries, Obama will have to change his position on immediate withdrawal with the above cartoon.

The image is not the most accurate or clear, and George Packer’s article makes no reference to it, but (if I am identifying it correctly) the drawing seems to imply that Obama is in the uncomfortable position of Neville Chamberlain being obliged by untoward and unforeseen developments (i.e. US success) to accept humiliating compromise in an attempt to achieve an honorable peace.

The metaphor, therefore, treats the Bush Administration’s efforts in Iraq as equivalent to Hitler, failing to withdraw all US forces immediately as surrendering Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany, and the moonbat hyper-pacifist left as equivalent to Western Democracy. Quite a metaphor!