From a very smart & accomplished reader (who is actually Rich’s trade guy):

“Derb—Re your recent post on the Corner, the group of statements
–We can’t leave Iraq without a victory.
–Unless Maliki & Co. get their act together, we can’t achieve victory.
–If Maliki & Co. don’t get their act together, we’ll leave.
should not be analyzed as a syllogism, but in a game-theoretic manner. Draw the game in tree form, with the two players being ‘Maliki & Co.’ and ‘US.’
At the first node, Maliki & Co. choose ‘Get their act together – yes, no.’ Assume that Victory is a function of this choice, and equals 1 if M & Co choose ‘Yes’ and 0 if they choose ‘No.’ Also assume that the Victory function equals the U.S. payoff, and (this last bit to be re-examined below) that the Bush speech constitutes a credible commitment by ‘US’ to play ‘Leave’ if M & Co’s choice at the initial node is ‘no.’
Solve the game by backward induction, and it is apparent that Maliki’s choice is dependent on Maliki’s relative payoffs from ‘Victory/US leaves’ and ‘Not getting act together/US leaves.’ The strategy is based on the idea that the first exceeds the second – Maliki would prefer to be in charge of his own country with his own army rather than have a chaotic country and no U.S. to protect him. State Maliki’s payoffs at the final node as 1 under Victory and 0 under ‘Don’t get my act together – U.S. leaves.’
If Bush’s speech is a credible commitment, then there are only two nodes at the bottom of the tree, with payoffs (1,1) and (0,0). With Maliki the first mover, and solving the game by backwards induction, then the path ‘Get my act together – Victory – *then* U.S. leaves’ is an equilibrium.
To assess whether Bush’s speech in fact represents a credible commitment by the U.S. thus depends on whether the U.S. assessment of Maliki’s payoff structure is in fact correct.”

[Derb] Uh-huh. I follow the math, but… something about lipstick and pigs keep coming to mind.