An operation by joint U.S.-U.K. forces in Maysan, south and east of Baghdad along the Iranian border, wasn't coordinated with local provincial officials. Maysan province is one of those provinces supposedly turned over to Iraqi security forces, meaning that the British and Americans handed control to the Shia militias. The Maysan operation killed dozens of people. One provincial security official, Latif al-Tamimi, told the Post that "occupation forces" launched the offensive without officials' knowledge. So here you have a major U.S. offensive denounced by the very government we're supposedly trying to protect, and one of the province's top officials calls the American troops "occupation forces." Can anything underscore the utter futility of the U.S. role in Iraq than that?