Hitchens is right on a lot of counts. The amount of violence in Iraq has plummeted. The Iraqis have come to some kind of truce among themselves. The Alquies have shot themselves in the foot in the wider Arab and Muslim world, by showing what monstrous butchers they are to fellow Muslims. The Iraqi army and infrastructure are on the mend. Iraqi politics seems to be functioning finally. And most of all, lets never stop celebrating the fact that Saddam Hussein, his evil sons and their wretched regime are very dead,

But even if all of these trends just keep going upwards, no American alive today will be able to see any fruits of a stable, healthy Iraq which will have made the whole mission worthwhile. It won't just be historians who write whole books and have college courses on the toll that Iraq has taken on America, how it was part of the beginning of the end of America's world leadership as a Great Power. We as individual citizens will be living the outcomes for the rest of our lives in at least the following ways:

A once fearsome US military now exhausted and stretched to the breaking point; our moral credibility in tatters; a national debt that is truly dangerous for our country, much of which is owned by the Chinese and which is crippling our economy; instability in oil supplies which are already strained by the enormous increase in worldwide oil consumption; can I mention the debt again, one which will require painful increases in taxes to cover the most basic non-military spending we expect from government for such things as public education, welfare safety nets and so on.

All of which make us a has-been. The Indispensable Nation will be replaced by who? China? Russia? Perhaps the UN or EU? Don't make me laugh.

Even if at the end of this - a generation from now - we end up with an Iraq which is basically humane, independent, stable and self governing, a moderate friend to the US and maybe even one which gives us special oil trading deals, the USA will have become in essence what became of England after WWII, a once great power - and a far greater one in human terms - looking back at what we once were.

How tragic.

The "best" ourcome is, briefly:

> A central vassal state of iran.

> A western Sunni stronghold for Wahabbi recruiting schools.

> A norther Kurdish region at war with our ally Turkey.

Mission Accomplished.

And there's more.

Kirkuk is still up for grabs (as far as the Kurds are concerned) and any effort to take control of it will result in a major conflict.

EarlyBird:

Everything beyond your first paragraph, which you ought to re-read, is the worst crap I've ever seen you post here.

How could Americans not benefit from a historic defeat of al Qaeda, which has disgraced itself in the entire Muslim world? I've gotten pretty used to your exaggerated view that this war has overstretched and "broken" our military, but your claim that it has damaged the country permanently or even long-term is nonsensical. Are we talking about the same country that fought the Germans and the Japanese all over North Africa, Europe and the Pacific? Are we now supposed to be broken by fighting a war in Iraq that cost, what, 2% of the troops lost in WWII?

What's most distressing is the lack of moral courage demonstrated by your reference to the destruction of our "moral credibility." That plays right into the hands of the bin Ladens who count on that to ultimately defeat the West. Whenever I hear something like that I'm reminded of the Iraqi exile commenting on the surprisingly large anti-war demonstration in Hyde Park: 'We're here every month demonstrating against Saddam, and I've never seen any of these people here." It is sheer moral cowardice to feel we should apologize to those who never bothered to go to an Iraqi embassy or consulate to protest Saddam's latest act of genocide or aggression, but who are immediately up for protesting America's decision to take down that asshole.

A truly shameful post.

hear, hear, Var... mop 'em up. the somewhat sad thing is, EarlyBird is one of the "good guys" on the other side. you would expect this type of negative bombast from the preeminent idiot on these forums, NeoLoony (Hugo Chavez-loving, America-hating, fascist-fetishist goofball that he is) and his miserable fellow travelers, but to see someone with a least a smidgen of intelligence, articulation and a true concern for Classic Liberal ideas to have fallen for the "we're all doomed because of Iraq" tripe is a little bit astonishing and dismaying. As difficult as it was, and still is, and will be, the liberation of Iraq is a seminal and glorious achievement, something to celebrate forever. I'm not worried about the blind, the duped and the stupid, tho. Neo gnashes his teeth at every American success and in the long run his cartoon-personae, and others like him, will only gain in irrelevancy and decay... but, being the pragmatic optimist that i am, i see EarlyBird and his flock coming around.

There is nothing shameful about my post Varian. I am being realistic here. You are not. This is not WWII, and we don't have a two million man standing army which can crush an enemy army and government and declare victory. We have a comparitively tiny military, and live in very different times with very different military challenges.

You'll notice that I celebrated the fact that we rid Iraq and the world of the Husseins. That will always be a great source of pride for the US.

But I am getting tired of only doing the immediate moral math - yes, of course we're the good guys, of course good is on our side in this fight - without looking at the practical realities. We can, and I suspect we will, win this battle in Iraq, but we are in danger of losing the wider war by losing American prestige and power.

How long do we need to be there? At what level of military and economic commitment? Where are the troops going to come from? Where is the money going to come from?

It's the generals themselves who are saying we are dangerously overstretched. It's the dedicated soldiers themselves who are saying this. I've got a friend who's a lieutenant in the Marine Corps who's on his fourth tour of duty in the last three years. (Three in Iraq; this current one in Afghanistan.)

Look at the national debt.

If we didn't have our boys in Iraq, do you think we could be doing some serious saber rattling in Georgia right now? Instead Bush looks like Kofi Annan. Do you think we could have bombed the shit out of Iran by now? Instead we're just asking nicely if they would consider stopping sending weapons and suicide bombers into Iraq.

But we can't. We're tapped.

Sorry folks, I'm with you in spirit, but you're not giving me any hope here. I want to hear about how this is practically going to get us where we need to go, not just that we're the good guys. I know we are. But good guys can lose.