Iraq is like...

My entry for "Let's consider the situation in Iraq as analogous to..." is:

Let's consider the situation in Iraq as analogous to having punched your fist into a bees' nest.

Your fist is certainly strong enough to punch through the nest's defences. However, once there it's considerably more difficult to extract it and in addition you seem to have angered the bees. What options do you have: you could remove your hand as quickly as possible but you're likely to anger the bees greatly whilst doing so; you could remove your hand as slowly and gently as possible, hoping that the bees forget your hand although the force with which you inserted your fist is not making it easy to withdraw it; or you could put your other hand into the nest thinking that with two hands there, you'll be able to fight off all of the bees.