Supporters of the war need not be vague when discussing what "victory" in Iraq means. Victory, for all practical purposes, probably looks a lot like what it does today.

Thats not exactly a happy statement, and republicans surely would disagree that we've achieved about as much as possible there. But as the surge finishes out, we also lose the last bit of our flexibility to actually get anything else accomplished in Iraq. Given the limits of practical reality (sectarian divide, lack of international support, poor iraqi infrastructure, the middle east environment, the rise of Iran), we have actually pulled off the reality-based best case scenario.

So congratulations. Time to think about leaving.

Ok, the obvious objection here is that if we leave, things will get worse. This is true. But if we leave in 10 years, things will get worse. If we leave in 50 years, things will get worse. Remove 160,000 enforcers of law and order from any disorderly situation and, yes, things get worse.

We cannot fix the sectarian divides, we cannot throw money at a corrupt iraqi government and expect it to fix its army and infrastructure. There are real limitations here that can only be avoided by maintaining our troop presence indefinetely. But that's a finger-in-the-dyke situation at best. More likely, we're entering a new phase of post-Iraq, post-Bush politics in the middle east that will cause our troops to be a more destabalizing factor (regionally) than they are now.

The successes that pro-war holdouts are looking for can only be achieved if US troops are present, meaning, US troops cannot fix Iraq and help it stand on its own any more than they already have; by now, our presence there provides a static stability, that will not engender homegrown stability. Take the deals we have made with the Anbar Sunni's, or Al-Sadr's self imposed cease fire, or Iran's halt in delivery of IFPs. ALL of these situations only exist because US troops act as the guarantors of the terms. We have created this current stability based on the premise that us troops are in Iraq. These deals have no incentive to create actual iraqi-based security in a scenario where we don't watch over them at gunpoint.

We have created a situation in which security is predicated and enforced, not encouraged by our presence there. Thus, the choices are to stay essentially forever, or to declare victory and get out. The scenario in which US forces act as gentle teachers and guides on Iraq's path to freedom and prosperity is a myth. Only Iraq itself can do that, and if it can't, then it won't. But we can't force something to happen and then expect it to hold once we leave.

Our mission has been to fight al-qaida. The troop surge finally got that part of the mission that much closer to completion. That needs to stay at the forefront of our goals, leaving Iraq relatively AQI-free by 2010 should be achievable. Leaving iraq as politically stable and united by a free and fair democracy is not. Besides, we have bigger fish to fry in the region, in areas where we can still effect the outcome.

Everyone needs to stop spinning yarns about how terrible we're doing, or about how everything will get better with the magical equation of troops+time=permanent stability. We need to sober up and acknowledge that we have done our best and basically gotten the best result from the situation that could be expected, once one strips away all the idealist rhetoric.

We came out with different conclusions but I don't disagree with your reasoning. I don't think we can leave tomorrow, but we can't stay there for much longer and there's certainly not much reason to expect the situation to get drastically better there.

It's not going to happen on Bush's watch, but the next President will need to start getting our troops home.

We musn't make the same mistake that we made in Vietnam.

This time, we must be certain to announce Victory prior to leaving.

That is critical.

True, nightswimmer. As corny as it sounds, we need to spin the withdrawal positively. I honestly think that the situation we have now could afford us to do so. Republicans, however, remain overambitious. They're getting the nation's hopes up that we can do EVEN better than we have, but we shouldn't sacrifice the good for the perfect.

As to when to withdraw, definetly not "tommorow." What people need to remember is that you don't just go from being 100% focused on staying to packing your bags. There's a mental drawdown period as well, when strategies and policies are adjusted in advance to accomodate the physical drawdown. Bush has not moved one inch in this direction, nor will McCain. Both Clinton and Obama are advocating this type of approach, to my knowledge.

jw, yours is one of the best posts I've read. The unrealistic expectations of what more can be achieved with a long deployment, and the lack of goals going forward, make it seem as though the administration is only trying to avoid disaster in the short term. Mainly the end of his term.

So the question is what possible breakthrough are proponents of a long deployment hoping to achieve? Will Sadr be content to sit quietly with his truce intact? Are the Bathists going to accept watching from the sidelines in the new government? Will the Kurds give up the dream of independence, especially now after events in Kosovo?

What is the goal now? What incremental improvement will justify a 150,000 troop deployment and another trillion over the next few years?

The aims of the intervention into Iraq were expressly to remove Saddam and his regime and to determine categorically that he or any putative successor regime could not manufacture and deploy WMD's against others in the region. He had already done so against his own people, something not even Stalin or Pol Pot, to name two notable exemplars of nation building by genocide, had done. He had shown a willingness to develop such weapons and had acquired exotic technologies (e.g. the 'super gun') by subterfuge. UN inspectors', UN embargoes and UN 'No Fly zones' (only enforced by the US and UK) had all been tried over a decade producing no change in outlook. Saddam had out run Reagan, Thatcher, Bush Snr., Major, Clinton and (almost) Blair. All he had to do was be patient. Removal by the only forces determined enough to undertake the task was inevitable, made worse only by delay.

The tragedy was the aftermath. No plan, a succession of special envoys who should have stayed at home to play golf and a military machine designed for one purpose, unsuited to the tasks it faced. Age old lessons (chiefly of British experience) had to be re-learned. They now have. Under a competent and brainy general the slogans may seem strange but they do describe actual effects.

Giving up now is tempting but lunatic. I am not proposing that exactly the same tactics or political programme is applied continuously, but abandonment is a truly appalling idea, however welcome it might be in 'fashionable' circles in Washington and London. To hide behind the concept of 'cut and run' will fool no one.

There are signs in the region that the 'other side' is feeling the heat. Not all is well in the states of Iran and Syria. The car bombers have no programme beyond a contempt for life and have alienated their only potential allies.

Iraq will go on being Iraq, difficult always. Yet the opponents of the Liberation of Iraq have never been keen to spell out their alternative. Continue with sanctions? Including medicines and drugs? This way Iraqis have been given a chance. As with any country they have to want outcomes which shape their future not distort it. The troops will come away, but not yet I hope.

Your grammar indicates that you are not an American. I would suggest that you review the history of the United Kingdom's experience in occupying Iraq. What makes you think that we'll do any better?

We can't do any more than we have . We have given the Iraqis the time the lives and the money to make the most out of a opportunity that may never come again.This can only be seen as one of the bigest errors and most incompetent execution of a millitary venture in U.S. history.

The decision was wrong and based on lies and deception. but had the Bush Administration done this with less hubris, self proclaimed surperiority and a minimum of pre-planning and research on the Iraq occupation we may have saved a few hundred thousand lives.Bush surrounded himself with arrogant,incompetent hacks who agreed with his every misinformed decision,no matter how contrary to common sense it seemed. Now we are stuck and will be trying to regain the squandered alliances and friendships we have spent decades building.

Be that as it may, we realize that a country cannot be put together overnight but it has been 6 years and nearly a Trillion U.S. dollars and we have very little more to show for our efforts than a loose confederation of tribes going through the facade of democracy. All sides in Iraq will continue to milk the U.S. of any resources offered,building their alliances and arsenals at our expence .They will wait until we leave and resume their fight for regional dominance and power.