I am literally appaled by Marlowecn post. It is bad enough our wn department of State has not ever done its homework about Iraq. Going way back to the Shia/Sunni intestetine wars and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, might have told them a few things how Iraq was created de novo..Shia/Sunni under Saddam was teh scales of terror. Those people hate theirguts, remind me very much of the demographics ofLebanon own spiral of hell. the solution is in an economy recovery and the build up of a local thriving miidle class… do you see it coming in iraq; nturally not. Iraq is oil rich could certainly build up a oil industry but that only homebread wealth is ubder the bilateral fire of religious factions. Just like the brothers muslin in eggypt started in the eraly 1900 because wealth …and education were not evely shared. and we speak at least on a peacful environment. Look at the history of Syria egypt and all the local powers and in Iraq we are so far from that , egypt is starting its glorious revolution1688 and iraq is still ion the throes of the viking invasions…. it bode ill for the future. my bet – bush will have his war till january 2009, and then the next POTUS will be stuck with no option but leaving… and that will rejoice russia and all the EU Britain included as the actual PM never abidede W. all those old colonial powers though coward as they are do know the Game and their histories. the longer we stay, the heavier the defeat…

And if so, what are you basing that belief on? The massive numbers of AQ terrorists in Iraq prior to the US occupation?

And can we all assume your last paragraph is basically saying the US can never remove troops from Iraq because somehow retreats are hard? And is there really any historical precedent for the claim that apply to this situation?

The hostility of liberals to even conceding Petraeus has been effective is remarkable. Sort of like the innumerable explanations for why Guiliani really did nothing to lower crime in NYC (my favourite explanation for this was an article in the WaPo a year back that claimed it was changes in the city's water supply – not Guiliani – that was responsible for lower crime).

I don't know of another example in American history where a general has been so unforgiven and insulted for successfully carrying out a mission.

That said, the US is admittedly stuck. A successful tactical initiative…but no idea how to press this into a strategic success…for fear of the success to date collapsing.

How this will play out I have no idea. Perhaps in early 2009…after President “Carter-lite” Obama has ordered an immediate withdrawal of US forces from Iraq…and the country collapses in civil war…with a resurgence of al-Q in Iraq…Obama will go cap in hand to Tehran to beg for their help in freeing the inevitable US troops taken hostage.

Retreats are a bitch to conduct successfully…especially under fire.

I wonder how liberals will spin the images of the last lonely Black Hawks leaving Iraq shot down by Sadr's RPGs into a briliant success of Obamessiah's foreign policy?

We can't leave now because the violence has been slightly reduced.

We can't leave now because…………