I think a reason the Bushites are so vehemently shouting down the Dems calling for withdrawl is becasue they know that in reality they will be significantly reducing the number of troops in the next 6-9 months and don't want the Dems to get any credit for pushing for it.

Of course a withdrawal plan is part of the solution , but only if the *Iraqi government* has authorship and control of it as a way to make a deal with parts of the insurgency. Deadline proponents have never seemed to understand that for the US to promulgate a withdrawal deadline unilaterally is to take away the Iraqi government's biggest bargaining chip in negotiating with the insurgency. If the Iraqis do this, great. Our only two conditions should be: 1. The withdrawal deal holds good with a legitimate elected government. Any group that mounts a coup and kills its way to power enjoys no protection from our intervention. 2. The Iraqi government has to establish a basic control over all regions of the country. We can't tolerate Al-Anbar being left a lawless Al-Queda haven.

How about "we should get out now because 15 Americans a week are being killed and many times that many maimed for life for nothing but political fig leafs and face saving." For better or worse, Iraqis will determine their future and Muslims will determine the future of the Middle East. These are historical forces beyond our unilateral control. We vastly over estimate our power and under estimate the power of history, geography and culture.

I prefer "Standing down and leaving".  The Iraqi's are pushing for a timetable for our departure.  They fully know we are part of the problem and not the solution.  Our generals freely admit our military presence is part of the problem.  Some democrats are pushing for a timetable because they realize the same thing.  Most Americans, probably even the ones who support the war, realize our occupation is part of the Iraqi problems.  The only ones who can't seem to understand this (or refuse to admit it) are the republicans and Joe Lieberman.

As much as I dislike the "amnesty" for insurgents proposal I think the dems would be well served to ignore that specific proposal and to beat the republicans over the head with the fact that the Iraqis even want us gone now...until the republicans and Joe Lieberman start bleeding from the ears.

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

What the United States can or cannot "tolerate" is quite beside the point. It is in fact immaterial. Failure is not an option. Failure is a fact and it has been thus for three years.

What the US should not tolerate and can do something about is the national leadership that conceived and executed this misbegotten adventure.

Regime change begins at home.

"We must withdraw now because we are helpless before the awesome might of the ever-victorious insurgency."

Since that happens to be true...

As long as the insurgency exists, it IS victorious. That's the common fact of guerrilla warfare, recognized by every guerrilla warfare expert.

The US CANNOT put down the insurgency without killing EVERY Sunni, and a significant number of Shia militia, throughout the country - which will raise more enemies and eventually require the genocide of a significant percentage of the country (more than the ONE PERCENT we've killed already.)

So the US HAS LOST. There is no longer ANY possible way the US military can defeat the insurgency.

Get used to it.

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

Matt faults the anti-war progressives for insufficiently indignant rhetoric. Perhaps but rather more critical is a shortage of manly words. Words that reach the NASCAR and "colors don't run" crowd.

Words like:

Loser One that fails completely: bust, failure, fiasco, washout. Informal: dud, flop, lemon. Slang: bomb. , wretch.

Liar charlatan, fake, fraud, humbug, impostor, mountebank, phony, pretender, quack.

Poltroon   coward, craven, dastard,  Slang: chicken, yellow-belly.

And there are some gang-banger slang equivalents best left off a family site

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

I really don't get this fascination with sloganeering. You'd think we're a bunch of Maoists.

 Forget the slogans. Have Jack Murtha read the headlines every day in a radio address:

US raid in Iraq sparks outrage (Reuters)  - 

Wary of U.S., Syria and Iran Strengthen Ties -

I think this will set off a firestorm but whatever the immediate result I hope we don't hear the inane "we can't give the insurgents a timetable".

What planet are these people from? And people like Ivo Daalder who should know better.

The insurgents don't give a damn about whether we have a timetable or not. They don't have one. They live there. They have nowhere to go. Besides, you'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know that the US military occupation hasn't much time left

"As long as the insurgency exists, it IS victorious."

Wow, talk about defining victory down. You do realize that by that standard, the US government really ought to declare defeat, and retreat from... the continential United States!

So the US HAS LOST. There is no longer ANY possible way the US military can defeat the insurgency.

The U.S. doesn't need to "defeat the insurgency." The U.S. needs to leave behind an Iraqi army that can keep the current Iraqi government in place. The latter is doable.

"The Iraqi government has to establish a basic control over all regions of the country. We can't tolerate Al-Anbar being left a lawless Al-Queda haven."

First - good luck with that first part. Until some sort of realistic deal is struck between the Sunni insurgents and the Shia-led government, it's not happening. And it may be a long time before such a deal can be made. The only deal the Sunnis will accept is significant power sharing - and it may require a lot more violence before the Shia concede that they either have to kill all the Sunnis or accept such a deal. It's doubtful they will take the former tack, whatever the current situation.

Second, Al Qaeda will not have a significant haven in Iraq once the US leaves and the question of who has power in Iraq is settled between the Sunni and the Shia. (The Kurds are irrelevant, they're going to "secede" no matter how it turns out, that's a given.) The Iraqis have no desire to have a bunch of foreign jihadists causing trouble from their country - except the Kurds, of course, and they'll either have to accept that or go back to Saddam's sort of ruthlessness against them - except this time with the help of the Turks, the Iranians and the Syrians. Expect an Iraq-Kurdish "civil war" to continue for the next twenty years.

Oh what a muddle, Oh what a mess
How it all ends is everyman’s guess
But Stand up, Stand down, that’s not the test
It’s Politics my friend which puts this to rest.

Americans are weary, and Repubs to blame
They can longer win on “more of the same”
But “Cut and Run” is bad, makes a coward you see
Unless it’s My plan, I’m sure you’ll agree.

He’d force some democracy on that Middle East
Instead corpses built up for the carrion feast
‘til no one is left who trusts our intent
After all the shells shot, and each bullet spent.

So Iraqis don’t want us, are tired of war
But some of Their leaders can use us some more
Will leave when we’re ready, Our leader shouts
You’ll leave when We tell you, then you’ll get out.

But please stay a while to help save our skins
The people don’t trust us after you voted us in
We played with their lives, and your money too
Now we’re stuck in this Zone, and fear is our due.

So how it all ends is still there to guess
Our Troops and their People have earned a good rest
But it’s Politics my friend that will be the redress
Oh what a muddle, Oh what a mess.
-usmc0311

No one has ever compared me to Rudyard Kipling, and now you know why.

“There once was a lady from Kent…”, after that I’m pretty much poetically spent. This is a very serious subject for me, please don’t think me too glib – but it’s like the man said “…sometimes I have to laugh to keep from crying”.

Uhm, one problem - NONE of that "heavy equipment" is of any value against an insurgency. It's just a target for IEDS.

Neither is US airpower.

The ONLY thing that matters in an insurgency is that your troops on the ground know proper counterinsurgency doctrine.

And the Iraqi Army doesn't - because they are primarily Shia militia. The Iraqi Army, if it has ANY doctrine at all, is going to follow US doctrine - which is wrong - or their own predilections for "shoot first and ask questions later" - not to mention torture - which is incorrect doctrine.

In other words, they are going to fail just like the US Army is failing.

Which means unless you have some sort of power sharing deal with the Sunnis, the Iraqi Army will merely be used for ethnic cleansing of Sunnis - and thus the insurgency will go on for years, and possibly decades until either all the Sunni are dead (and the surrounding Arab states won't allow that) or enough blood has been shed that even the Shia recognize they have to make a deal.

"In order for the Ba'athists to sit down and negotiate an end to the unpleasantness in Anbar and the Baghdad exurbs, there needs to be enough credible force on the Iraqi government side such that both sides believe that said Iraqi government is capable of doing more than talking."

And I've just pointed out that the government will NEVER have enough "credible force" to do that. All they will have is a bunch of Shia militia, while the Sunni insurgency will have many, if not most, of the ex-Baathist military on its side - and probably the support of Sunnis in the surrounding states (except Iran, who will support the Shia.)

This is a recipe for civil war, not negotiations.

And my point is that NONE of this is going to change whether or not the US remains in the middle of it for the next year or the next ten years.

What those who wish to see the end of the occupation ought to do is stop talking about "timetables for troop withdrawal," and demanding that Bush set "timetables for the Iraqi Army to gain enough independence to be able to operate without us."  (Both mean the same thing).

The common refrain against timetables is that if we say we will leave on MM/DD/YYYY, then the insurgents will simply wait us out and then take over after we go.  What I have yet to hear anyone but myself (and a few people who agreed with me when I made the comment on Jim Henley's blog) point out is that this automatially asumes that the Iraqi Army will not be ready to take over for us by whatever date we set.  The proper response to the pro-warriors' refrain should be "well, just set the date for after the Iraqi Army is ready to take over for us.  When will that be?"  And then, "oh, so what you are saying is that the Iraqi Army will not be ready in the foreseeable future?"

"You say I'm a dreamer.  We're two of a kind.  Looking for some perfect world that we both know that we'll never find." - Thompson Twins, "Hold Me Now"