The democrats should be jumping for joy and shouting “Yippee! The more the Iraqi government is able to consolidate its authority and the Iraqi Army can function on it’s own, the less effective Republicans will be throwing around clichés like ‘cut and run’ or ‘’inviting a bloodbath’ to oppose Senator Obama or anyone else advocating an orderly withdrawal from Iraqi

Obama wants to bring combat troops home within 16-18 months of instructing the generals to give him their plan to withdraw forces. That’s two years from now. It the Iraqi government continues making gains like those described in the NYT and WP, the pace will accelerate.

“Cut and Run’ and “bloodshed’ may have had some traction a few years ago, but they are phrases of the past. The real issues today are 1) how and how fast we withdraw; 2) whether we keep troops in Iraq indefinitely in the Korea/Japan model,

The latter is the questions Democrats should have begun addressing a year ago. They must start to address it today. The Democrats, particularly Presidential Nominee Barack Obama, must keep the framework and content of the Iraq debate, leading into November, in their court by anticipating the ‘next big thing’ and not get bogged down debating whether the glass is empty or full.

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