In my view you cannot build a policy on deception and distortion. "Staying the course" is more of the same. You cannot salvage a policy built on deception and distortion. Every indicator, including polling of Iraqi civilians themselves, confirms that the presence of the American occupation feeds resentment, feeds ethnic conflict, and undermines the legitimimacy of any government that is seen as benefitting from the American military occupation. Murtha has come to this conclusion, later rather than sooner. And so have most of the American people.

Bill R. 

People I care about are in Iraq right now.  And those people *ARENT* the Iraqis we purport to be helping.  They are there because of a vast web of lies and ignorance and they desperately want to come home.  I want them to come home too.

Since I don't care about the success or failure of the Iraq debacle to the extent that I care about seeing loved ones alive again, tell me why I should lobby for them to stay until after Iraq turns the next of its million corners? 

It seems to me that Murtha's comments have the result, intended or no, of putting the republicans into an awkward position come election-time next year.

According to conventional wisdom, the republicans are expected to withdraw troops next year sometime, in order to get an electoral bump. Murtha's statement makes this plan problematical for two reasons:

1. Democrats can now take credit for the plan.

2. Democrats can and will ask next year: "Why the fuck did the republicans wait so long?"

Moreover, if republicans withdraw troops ANY time, it will be against the backdrop of Murtha's comments, potentially resulting in headlines of the form: "republicans acknolwedge mistake; begin troop withdrawl".

Obviously, that's not so good for republicans either.

I have no idea if these or other political consequences were explicitly on Murtha's mind, or if, to the contrary, he's a genuinely populist-oriented kinda guy. But the possible consequences I point out don't require that they be located on the top of Murtha's mind.

I agree with the above comment that says there are many negative signs that wipe out the positive.  What I see is a regime that feels safe enough in power BECAUSE of our presence that they can engage in risky practices like torture, which is decidedly negative.

We should never have gone in.
Once in, we should have left upon capturing Saddam.
Now, we should get out immediately.
Then, the inevitable civil war that has been brewing for decades can be played out.
Like the US, this is a country born with a fundamental flaw that will only be resolved through a violent civil war. It can't be resolved by an outside force [the US army] or by political discourse.
We might as well get out of the way and let it happen. As Murtha suggests, there is nothing more the US Army can accomplish in Iraq. The civil war is coming-period. Why spend more lifes and money postponing the inevitable?

In the real world, of course, an "immedate withdrawal" that protects the safety of the soldiers doesn't have to ignore these considerations.  It would seem extremely unlikely that there could be some consensus formed before the Iraqi election as a result of a speech by an opposition congressman with the Thanksgiving holiday coming up.

Much more likely is that this speech could lead to the formation of a bipartisan group of US Reps planning some appropriatiions strategies that would have an effect after the first of the year. That is, if there is anybody in the administration to talk to, a channel could well be opened to get a plan together, or run the risk of funding cut-offs.

Such a plan would certainly reflect the results of the elections.

Also, the issue of these bases have to be settled. I believe, quite strongly, that there are elements of the administration who consider Iraqi bases non-negotiable.   There may be some workable compromise wrt locating them in Kurdistan, but like everything else in Iraq, acknowledging an implicitly indpendent Kurdistan would have domino-like effects.

My point is that the timing of the speech is fine. Reps go home for the holidays, get their ears blown off, come back, and see whether there is anybody in the executive branch prepared to face reality. 

Since I don't care about the success or failure of the Iraq debacle to the extent that I care about seeing loved ones alive again, tell me why I should lobby for them to stay until after Iraq turns the next of its million corners?

One reason=one word: Afghanistan.

Since I don't care about the success or failure of the Iraq debacle to the extent that I care about seeing loved ones alive again, tell me why I should lobby for them to stay until after Iraq turns the next of its million corners?

One reason=one word: Afghanistan.

As much of a bastard as Sadam was, he prevented the Taliban and Al Qaeda from using Iraq and Iraqi oil to further their aims.  It is important that GW's misadventure does not succeed in actually making Iraq a base of terror.  It is the supreme irony that George W Bush was more than happy to comply when Bin Laden said he wanted to start a war between Islam and the West.

That said, it does appear that our presence in Iraq is an aggravating factor, and the sooner or military is back home protecting the US the sooner we stop creating new enemies in Iraq. I am in agreement that the sooner our troops leave Iraq the better it is for everyone. But leaving without a plan for how to prevent Iraq becoming a base for terror is almost (though not quite) as stupid as going to Iraq without a plan for how to prevent Iraq from becoming the precursor to a base for terror.

So there is the conundrum - how do we get out ASAP without allowing the Zarqawi becoming the next Bin Laden/Hussein, and Iraq becoming the next 1991-Afghanistan/1935-Gernmany. 

I am not entirely kidding when I say I half hope the Chinese will take this problem off our hands.

I am not entirely kidding when I say I half hope the Chinese will take this problem off our hands.

New Rule #2 

Whenever someone advocates "staying the course", it is incumbent upon them to describe what 6 more months of "staying the course" will result in. It is, moreover, incumbent upon them to reconcile this prediction with the several prior 6-month periods that have already taken place.

The whole argument based around "we can't leave because the place will go to shit" is idiotic. The place is already shit. We made sure of that. The truth is, the only thing stay-the-coursers are interested in is avoiding admitting that the place has gone to shit, and it's largely our fault.

Not that I'm surprised - republicans, both sympathetic and actual, have never been known for their ability to admit a mistake.

Here is a detailed and well-argued article
http://www.villagesoup.com/commletters/letters.cfm?TopicID=6495
that the result of an immediate US withdrawal is likely to be beneficial for Iraq, not a disaster.

I don't think you have much choice but to wait.


As for the no deadline drivel.....who ya foolin but yourself

Afghanistan.  You will not have a minority Sunni state becoming a haven for Wahhabist terrorists.

And you know what?  even if this were not the case, I still want the people I care about home now.  So the ruling class has again made a clusterfuck of a foreign policy situation through inept handling and impossible dreams.  I fail to see why Joe and Jane Grunt should be expected to die for the foolishness of a group of dopes who have nothing on the line other than their reputations. 

You know, BBochove and wystler, Murtha was just interviewed on CNN, and he bitch slapped Wolf back to their Headline News channel.  Wolf quoted Hastert's statement back to Murtha, who said, So what?  It's the Speaker, and who cares?  Then he leveled the kill shot asking, Did he serve? 

But getting back to your point, "now" is indeed the issue, which Rep. Murtha also addressed.  He made the comment that it's one step at a time.  Bingo.  Murtha's "immediate" withdrawal statement was his way of throwing down the guantlet, a dare, a threat and going even further, a warning shot across Bush's bow.  Because Murtha knows he's got the American people behind him, and guess what, the Republicans do too.

Taylor Marsh

 It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion



And that Congressman Murtha is exactly what Daalder's fallen into. The illusion of deadlines and constitutions with which he wraps his flawed policy analyses

1) You can't fire Rummy. nor can Murtha.

2)  Withdraw now means at least six months.

3) Doing anything other than planning a withdrawal requires an objective and a plan for achieving that objective. What is the objective? What is the plan?  At the moment, the US is in Iraq because the US is in Iraq. I don't see anything else going on, nor any reason to believe that will be any different a year from now.

4) It's entirely possible that US presence has been making things worse, not better. There's plenty of reason to think so.

5) The most widely cited reason for the US remaining is that an enormous civil war will start immediately.

    A) Note that Murtha's plan calls for contingent support

    B) Note that withdraw now folks like Juan Cole expect an extended period of air and armored support for precisely this reason.

   C) What will be different later?

What US action will make the civil war less likely in the future than today? If the only thing preventing the civil was is US withdrawal, well, then let's withdraw now, have the civil war and pay the price immediately.  Nobody I've seen make this argument can present a scenario that would make civil war less likely.  The only argument you can make is that Shiites might be better able to crush the Sunnis if given more time to arm and train their forces. But this Iraqi army thing is clearly a non-starter.

You need some idea beyond "stay the course." The US has been in that mode for at least a year with no appreciable progress. More of the same makes no sense whatsoever.

Pulling up stakes now, before next month's election and before the new national assembly has had a chance to consider amending the constitution in ways that protect the equities of all Iraqis doesn't strike me as the right thing to do.

I'll give you the waiting for next election part, because we know that surely nothing will happen before then anyway.

Waiting for the Iraqis to amend the constitution seems pretty open-ended to me, like waiting to turn another corner.  It will take months to draw down the numbers of troops with any semblance of order, but after the vote takes place we should begin.

If we stay, the situation will be bad, and if we go, the situation will be bad, and maybe worse, but a day of reckoning will come eventually when the Iraqis will have to solve their own problems.

I was against this war from the beginning, and I hate that we messed up so badly in its planning and execution, but I don't see what we can do at this point to make things better in the foreseeable future.  

What interests me here is that from what I've read, Murtha is considered a sort of unofficial spokesman for the military.  If he is speaking, in his unofficial capacity, for what military folks think, it suggests to me that maybe there aren't as many signs of optimism as it seems.  I was against the invasion with a passion, but now that we're there, I feel we have a moral obligation to stay until it's crystal clear we're doing more harm than good.  But if the military wants out the clock is clearly running, and there's not much time left on it.  It's going to take more than just optimistic signs to turn the opinions of military folks around; there are going to have to be some concrete markers of progress, and we simply aren't seeing them.    

This is why Iraq should have been partitioned into 3 provinces from the beginning. That way the US could withdraw from those provinces that didn't want them and stay in the others. For example they could stay in the Kurdish homeland probably.
The Shiites might also let them stay and they could leave the Sunnis alone. They could also control them by the other provinces restricting their oil revenue. The whole problem began by Iraq being one country
and won't end until that does.

Hear! Hear!

... such as that scumbag Chalabi!

"...more votes" ABC News showed one person voting 7 times for the new constitution. That was one person in one polling place. One can only imagine how many other people in how many other places did that.

I'm not so sure. If those poll numbers for Bush keep dropping like a rock - Iraq -, you'll see the pols in Congress deserting him like rats from a sinking ship. NPR said this morning that Bush's approval rating in Tenn. is down to 40% from 55% in January. "The times they are a'changin'."

"... putting the Republicans in an awkward position." What a pity that would be... Yuk! Yuk!

Bush has turned Iraq from a hell on earth into a hell on earth. We need to leave, regroup with some intelligent leadership after Bush/Cheney are forced to resign or are impeached, and make a rational policy for the 21st Century ending this episode of "The Stupids Go to Washington.

No matter what we do militarily it will not work. See the history of the French in Algeria and Vietnam. See the history of America in Vietnam. Watch the movie The Battle of Algiers.

Like the Senator, I think it is time I offered my own exit strategy for Iraq. Everyone in Washington except those in the Bushbunker knows we need an exit strategy; few have offered one. While I have had a bit more time to consider my proposal than did the Senator in the story (which was current during my early days on Senate staff), I am sure my proposal will have holes in it. Nonetheless, it may help move the discussion along, from whether to get out of Iraq to how to get out.

Please note that I am not talking about how to win the Iraq war. The war was lost from before the first bomb fell, because the strategic objectives were never attainable no matter what we did. Further blunders, from de-Baathification and sending the Iraqi Army home, through mistreating the civilian population, have moved us from mere failure to incipient disaster. The question, rather, is how we might get out without our defeat being so obvious as to be undeniable.

William Lind - Exit Strategy | November 04, 2005

This is an outstanding and thoughtful potential solution and precisely the type of strategy that would result in avoiding a fiasco.  This article is worth reading, top to bottom.

The GET OUT NOW strategy can very well become a moment of epiphany that instructs the military to follow a course very much like the one prescribed in the article.  Instead of trying to win an unwinnable war with belligerent brutality, we may be able to defer to de-escalating the violence, ensuring some civil rest based on strategic coalitions (holding our noses all the while), and so on.

And withdrawal may never be 100% withdrawal.  The Kurds deserve a US presence of some kind to reassure the Turks and protect the Kurds.

These things may bring the best victory we can every hope to acheive.

Secondly, Murtha's comments make clear that the Democrats not only have ideas but are exercising real courage.  This is happening quietly, regularly, and with astounding  impact. In America's over 225 year history we may be witnessing the healing of a democracy by a minority party that holds not a single lever of power but the voice of the people.  The beat poets might call this phenomenon something holy - government being moved by the conscience of the people rather than the perfunction of a sitting oligarchy.

excuse me fella' but just what the hell is this "we're there?" you ain't, I ain't, and mr ivo sure as hell ain't, but a hundred and fifty thousand of our sons and daughters are. and as i said above, my little brother is.

if you want to play war games enlist or play Risk. but dont you dare try and play Bobby Fischer with his life like he is some god damned toy soldier on a board game.

Who wants to be the last man to die for a mistake? I sure as hell bet you don't, and i doubt you are the one who is willing to look the parents, spouse or children of the one who does and tell them that gee whizz, the nation needed their loved one for just one more day of that goddamned aweful mistake...and $hit just happened, so sorry,  here's your kid back, in a pine box.

 you need to stroll over to the viet nam memorial and run your fingers over some of those names carved into the marble and understand that they died for no good reason at all.

My uncle's name is on that damned wall, I carried his casket in ''68 as a 14 year old. he died for nothing, and i will be damned if i am willing to let that $hit happen again with my brother without a fight.

you can take your Real Politik and stick it where the sun don't shine.

You know who the leading proponent of the stay-the-course position was.  John Lennon called him "Adolph Heatlump" and noted that he only had one.

How about this?  (Mind you, I know it will never happen, but how about it anyway)

1.  We get rid of Bolton
2.  We go to the UN on our knees, and admit that we have royally screwed up
3.  We ask for a UN peace-keeping force to take over the policing job that our army (which should never have had the job in the first place) has been tasked with
4.  We suggest that the UN, (which henceforth is in control in Iraq) take all the countries who have made offers to train Iraqi military -- up on their offers, so that they can get trained without the fear of being tied up and shot in the back of the head.
5.  We TRULY join the UNITED NATIONS with the goal of averting war, and the hope of improving life on this planet.
6.  We absolutely (and without fingers crossed behind our backs) declare that torture is an international crime, punishable by international courts.
7.  We acknowledge that we have backed MANY non-democratic governments when it suited us, and therefore we have no business deciding the form of government for ANY other nation.
8.  And finally, we declare that we will seek out the truth behind our actions.  If they lead to crimes attributable to those in power, we turn them over to the world court.  If they are not, we just lick our wounds and try to make ourselves a better nation, with actual, HONEST elections in the future.

btw -- this is only in response to the mess in Iraq.  My list goes on for what we should do about Israel and the Palestinians, and about how we should focus our attention within our borders, and on developing a thriving new economy based on alternative fuel sources (rather than worrying about outsourcing industries that are better and cheaper-done in other countries)

It seems to me that the reality based community just has to analyze what's happened to see the harm we are doing. A USA occupying Army in Iraq is going to keep refueling the insurgency.

This is question begging.    

you can take your Real Politik and stick it where the sun don't shine.

Such a tough fellow!  So full of righteous anger!  Unfortunately, you apparently don't know what the phrase "realpolitick" means, either that, or you were so incredibly angry you were unable to understand my post, although judging from the overall quality of your writing, perhaps anger had nothing to do with it.      

What I see is a regime that feels safe enough in power BECAUSE of our presence that they can engage in risky practices like torture, which is decidedly negative.

This is not at all the impression I get from reading the recent coverage by the NYT reporters on the torture and 'secret prisons.' Some of the Sunnis supplying accusations of torture are saying that they want the Americans to investigate and do oversight and that when Americans were around, it helped.

Actually, the impression I get is that our on-the-ground military was not really paying attention at all to what all these recently empowered groups were doing. It wasn't benign in that it's negligence, like so much of Rummy's plan, it seems like no one from the U.S. higher ups seems to have given a damn or paying attention, they were happy that Iraqi groups were taking over picking up and interrogating people, and there has been no oversight of these groups. When more grunt-level military heard complaints of these places, they inspected and were effective in stopping what was going on. It's definitely not seen as being condoned--they know that U.S. military wouldn't like it, so they hid it. What I am saying is that the U.S. higher-ups seem to be taking an attitude like "don't ask, don't tell."

(I think of two reasons for the attitude: because they simply wish to bug out ASAP, it's the desperation thing again, any local 'law enforcement' is better than U.S. doing it, or they just don't have enough proper troops for oversight. In keeping with the way Rummy has run this occupation all along, it's probably both...not into 'peacekeeping' was going to be greeted with flowers and sweets and what's a little looting...people are free to do bad things, like looting, and like torture.)

Two articles today were good on the topic; there is info. suggesting just the opposite of what you infer. The first is best as to figuring out the players involved, as it suggests what happened when the Interior Minister recently changed from a Sunni to a Shiite. It includes the results of interview with the recent former Sunni Minister, and he lives nearby and has been watching what's been going on. He too, had been cited for torture by Human Rights Watch, but there appears to have been a change to political retribution now.

Note the quote from a former detainee that an American officer, upon discovering the cell he was in, gave the Iraqis angry orders to treat the prisoners better immediately:

November 17, 2005

Iraqi Rift Grows After Discovery of Prison

By EDWARD WONG and JOHN F. BURNS

....On Wednesday afternoon, three guards dressed in green camouflage fatigues and brandishing Kalashnikov rifles declined to allow a reporter inside, citing the investigation.

The two-level bunker measures about 11,000 square feet and was used as a headquarters for the Interior Ministry under L. Paul Bremer III, the former American occupation administrator. Mr. Naqib, who became the interior minister after the transfer of sovereignty in June 2004, said he moved the headquarters after a month, but kept an office and bedroom on the first floor, and senior ministry officials continued to work in the building. Mr. Bremer and American generals visited the bunker on several occasions.

Mr. Naqib said that the basement was used as warehouse space, and that he did not allow police commando units to run their own prisons. He said the majority of commando officers working in the ministry now were appointed by him, though many others have been dismissed. The number of special units has proliferated. Mr. Naqib said he had hired members of the Badr Organization, but not nearly as many as Mr. Jabr.

Interior Ministry officers under Mr. Naqib were accused of torture and prisoner abuse as well. Human Rights Watch issued a report last January detailing such cases. Mr. Naqib, who is running for the National Assembly, acknowledged that "there were some mistakes made."

Each notable special unit now has its own detention center, Mr. Naqib said. An Interior Ministry official confirmed this, saying there were five official prisons in the Baghdad area and 8 to 10 unofficial jails run by special units. Those centers are generally used to hold people picked up without a legal basis, he said.

The head of the central criminal court, Lukman al-Samarraie, said special units could make arrests without warrants and did not have to file court paperwork. Large-scale arrests by the police began last spring, when the Shiite-run Interior Ministry carried out a sweep of Baghdad to try to curb suicide bombings.

A resident of Falluja, a former guerrilla stronghold, described in a telephone interview on Wednesday how he was taken to the Jadriya bunker after an arrest last June and tortured. He spoke on the condition that he be identified only by his nickname, Abu Jasim, for fear of retribution. He said he had signed papers when he was released on Nov. 11 pledging not to talk about the detention. His account could not be independently verified.

Abu Jasim, 40, said he and two relatives were picked up by Iraqi forces and taken to Baghdad on June 27. They were held for 20 days in one of the unofficial prisons, called Al Nosour. He shared a 215-square-foot room with about 80 detainees. American soldiers walked through the prison after he was locked up and appeared shocked at the conditions.

"I still remember an American officer demanding that fans and cooling units be put in the hallway," Abu Jasim said. "When the Iraqi officer told him, 'O.K., we'll do it tomorrow,' the American officer said angrily, 'No, today.' "

Abu Jasim said he and his two relatives were then transferred to the Jadriya bunker, where prisoners were held in rooms similar to those at Al Nosour and allowed to use the toilet only every three days. Some of the officers boasted on the first day that they worked for the Badr Organization. The prisoners, mostly Sunni Arabs, were forced to wear blindfolds virtually the entire time.

"We were beaten with cables, hoses and wooden sticks," and often given electric shocks, Abu Jasim said. "Your back would turn purple or dark blue, depending on what you were beaten with."

He said he and his two relatives were set free after their families paid a total of $24,000.

A senior American officer said the decision to move on the center came after a flow of reports reaching the Americans, including one from a woman looking for her 15-year-old son, described the center as "a notorious address" where people were being held for long periods and mistreated. The missing boy was not among the 173 detainees found.

Sabrina Tavernise, Ali Adeeb and Khalid al-Ansary contributed reporting for this article.

Similar testimony from an alleged tortured detainee here--the Americans were not around, and the Iraqis tried to hide them from the Americans, and they seem to be complaining there is no oversight by Americans:

November 17, 2005

The Prisoners

Sunnis Tell of Abuses in Iraqi-Run Detention Sites

By SABRINA TAVERNISEBAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 16 - In the wake of the discovery of a secret detention center in a former bomb shelter here, where prisoners were alleged to have been starved and tortured, four Sunni Arabs have given accounts of abuse in several other detention centers run by Iraqi commandos.

In interviews in Baghdad, the former prisoners said they had been held in the basement of a museum in Madaen, a mixed city of Shiites and Sunnis south of Baghdad that has been torn by sectarian violence....

An American military official, whose unit used to patrol the area, said he was not aware of such a detention center. But the official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the news media, added that his unit withdrew from the city earlier this year, after the Iraqi unit arrived.

The men's accounts could not be independently corroborated, although certain details, including where they were transferred and what they say was done to them, appeared to fit into patterns outlined by other Sunnis in recent months.....

The former prisoners said their captors, Interior Ministry commandos who they said were Shiites, had tried to keep them hidden from the American military, at one point even hastily moving Mr. Samarrai.

Mr. Samarrai, who was later transferred to a prison near Nissour Circle in central Baghdad and released in a large group of prisoners on Nov. 1, said he hoped that the Americans would investigate.....

"It's a secret place," Mr. Samarrai said. "I wish the Americans would go to the museum and find out about it."....

.....Detainees were treated better in the capital, said Amar Sami Samarrai, 23, who is Mr. Samarrai's cousin but was held separately from him. In the detention center near Nissour, Amar Samarrai said Americans had gone through the center four times during his 38-day stay.....

Mona Mahmoud, Sahar Najeeb and Omar al-Neami contributed reporting for this article.

p.s. I want to make it clear that by posting the above I in no way mean it to be an apologist argument. Actually, I find it incredibly damning of the Bush administration and that this is precisely Bush is getting such bad polling on how he is handling Iraq. It's this: the same exact competence in Pentagon leadership has been going with this occupation for two years. Nothing has changed! There's no there there! Some anti-war people constantly argue as if everything is intentional over there. This does not appear to be the situation to most who read regular news from Iraq! It's chaos over there, chaos, the same exact chaos as the early days of looting. They never had enough troops and now they don't give a damn what kind of people are taking over the policing and intel in that country, and there aren't enough people to train or hire properly.

Which takes us back to the real topic of this thread.

I am always amazed when people argue as if most of the Bushies don't want to bug out ASAP. I think everything they do shows that they'd like to get most of the troops out of there ASAP. They are at the point now when any Tom Dick or Harry will do.

To make my point, a made-up story. You know those long lines of applicants for security jobs? Here's how I imagine it: ok, so you convicted by Saddam's courts of the murder of your wife? No problemo, I'm sure it was because you were a Shiite. You'll make a fine cop! Now get out and arrest some of those criminal insurgents! If you bring in 5 tomorrow, and they talk, a bonus for you!

So you see these "forts" as net progress?  There are a whole bunch of negatives to offset that progress. Not to mention that seeing that as an important measure of progress means accepting the notions that the insurgency is 1) directed at some other agency than the US and 2) dependent upon foreign sources for arms and people.

It's troublesome, through all this, that assessing whether or not these notions have any basis in reality is difficult. The decision, whether by the White House or the Pentagon, to manage this war by providing inaccurate information about various elements of what is going on leaves us in a bizarre state of discussion. Your position implicitlly accepts the importance of foreign jihadist elements--with good reason because the administration frequently talks about them.  However, other people minimize the importance of those sources as part of the insurgency. Those sources say the insurgency is widespread and based primarily on either ethic or nationalist motivations.  Who to believe? More to the point, an enormous difficulty in having a discussion like this is that I simply don't believe what the administration is saying.  Their track record for both duplicity and temporizing obfuscation has not lent them much credence. Did you read Packer's book?

By concrete measures of security and well-being, there has been no appreciable progress.  You still need a convoy to drive from the airport to Baghdad. Appropriated moneys aren't being spent because work cannot take place on water projects. Reporters who were able to go out into villages and talk to people can't do so anymore. 

Finally, sunk costs don't matter. It doesn't make any sense to say "2000 soldiers have died. We owe those soldiers 2000 more deaths" when there is no objective in sight. Are you saying  your objective is to spend the next year establishing border security in Iraq? That those 2000 soldiers and many many more Iraqis have died to insure border security? 

As far as motives go, there's plenty of selfish politicizing going on.  I happen to think that a major reason we are in this war are the result of selfish, political motivations.  But that opinion isn't relevant to this discussion; it's a distraction from the central issue.

The central issue is if you are going to stay for another year, and then begin withdrawal, what is your objective?  What will cause you to say at the end of another year that the effort has been worthwhile?  The idea that simply committing more time in the same endeavors constitutes progress is just not good enough.

One final point. An election is taking place in December. This election supposedly will estabish the this-time-for-sure sovereign government in Iraq. I find it at least a little disturbing that nowhere in your post do you say something like "Let's see what the elected Iraqi government has to say."  It would certainly strengthen your position if that government were to define a US role and how they wanted it to continue.  The US might not agree to that role, but it would at least be useful, from the point of view of a continued commitment of what is essentially the entire American fighting force, to know what the host country thinks. 

Wouldn't it? They are the "host country" aren't they? 

I doubt we've succeeded at sealing the borders well enough to stop material and people from entering, and I haven't seen anything in the press that indicates that we have.

Also, remember that since the neocons have pointed out that they want to go after Syria and Iran next, those two countries are pretty highly motivated to make sure that Iraq goes as *badly as possible* for us.

Fundamentally, I don't think that pro-Iranian SCIRI is a big improvement over Saddam.  You replaced a secular fascist with a religiouis fascist party that happens to be allied with a regime,