Has he seen the map?

The always thoughtful Billmon points out that by simply looking at a map of the Middle East:

you’d be hard pressed not to conclude that defending [Iraq] against external threats would be extremely difficult, and probably impossible, and that a breakdown of political and military control within its borders would create enormous security risks both for its occupiers and for its neighbors. …

This chain of thought left me with a joke, dating from World War II, which I picked up somewhere. It seems a German general and his mistress are indulging in a little pillow talk one night, when he lets slip the fact that the Fuehrer has decided to invade the Soviet Union — Operation Barbarossa.

The mistress, who’s no smarter than she needs to be, is a little vague on the details of European geography. So the general takes her into his study and shows her his wall map. He points out the enormous red expanse of the USSR, and the smallish brown patch that is Germany.

The mistress examines the map with dismay, then worriedly asks her paramour: “But liebling, has the Fuehrer seen this map?”