If you’re in the business of extracting the Funny from the day’s news, there’s a simple maxim today: Avoid Fallujah. This, by the way, also makes an excellent travel advisory. There’s absolutely nothing amusing about what went on there yesterday, so it’s a topic that we’d ought to avoid.

But I can’t. Especially when I find my self staring at the massive gulf between What We Should Do and What I Think We’re Gonna Do. If you stood on one side of that divide you’d need to use semaphore to communicate with the other. And your message would probably be “Duck!”

We’ve already promised an overwhelming response. And when I say “we,” I mean the US Army.

Not that some sort of military response isn’t called for here, like after any horrifyingly bloody riot. But I don’t think this is going to resemble crowd control any more than it’s going to resemble police activity or investigative work. It’s likely going to resemble… war. There probably won’t be any judges, juries, or due process. I could be wrong, but I sense there’s some major bloodshed coming. And if it’s done absolutely perfectly, it’ll only harm those who perpetrated this atrocity (though you don’t have to surf too far on the web to find rabid calls to replace Fallujah with a smoldering crater and a business card).

But here’s the thing: I may be somewhat deprived of my sense of humor today, but the ol’ irony gland is still working fine. So it strikes me as odd that while right now things are happening in Iraq that unequivocally require a US military response, we’re somehow comfortable saying that in 90 days we’ll be happy to put matters like this into the hands of the Iraqi Provisional Government.

After all, we’re giving them sovereignty. So if there’s another Fallujah-type incident 90 days from now, will we be satisfied tossing the matter over to the Iraqi police? Perhaps they’ll give us special permission to march into their cities and fire upon civilian suspects (”Have fun in Tikrit, and if you see my cousin Samir, tell him I say hi.”). Or will we have to invade all over again, depose the newly sovereign government, take care of the insurgents, and then get to work re-reconstructing Iraq?

If so, you can bet that Ahmed Chalabi will provide us with all the dirt on the atrocities of the first provisional government and will become a key player in the new one.

Sooner or later the Bush administration is going to have to fess up that the June 30 deadline is actually more of a… guideline. My guess is that they’ll try to redefine “sovereignty” a bit before they give up the ghost, but give it up they will. And by then they may even get the idea that a power transfer should be effected by transitioning to a truly multinational force that includes Muslim soldiers…

Then again, that could just be my optimism leaking out. It does that occasionally, which is why I always carry a handkerchief. In truth, we may just end up reducing Fallujah to a two-dimensional city, accepting that this will further enrage the hearts and minds that we were hoping to take hold of, and digging in for a prolonged guerilla war.

On the bright side, if that happens then it won’t be too long before we all become numbed to the constant parade of violent atrocities. And then we satirists will be back in the ol’ saddle.