Hmmmm

Sullivan is much better when he's not spazzing out on Bush or Torture. Here is a reasonable post on Iraq.

He rightfully recognizes their are risks to leaving and staying, but thinks we ought to leave because he does not support an indefinite colony in the shit hole of the world. I DON'T EITHER.

If I thought the point of Iraq was to colonize, I'd say F-THAT and get out. I support Iraq as a model. I support the idea that IF the guns were taken away from the moderates heads that the Middle East HAS A CHANCE to move away from the morass of tyrants and fundamentalists. We ought to help them achieve that model because the tyrants and the fundamentalists hate us - deep down they really, really hate us. Some of them hate us so much, they try to kill us, others merely secretly pine for our ill fortune, but the fact remains - as flawed as we are, are fundamentally better and incompatible with thuggish dictators.

If we can get the majority of the Sunni insurgency to chill and join the political process and get a central and local government that is not fundamentally designed to screw one of the ethnic minorities in Iraq...we should start pulling the big numbers of troops back and leave only a cadre to assist with eliminating AQ and not allowing the Insurgency to spike again. That is the goal. A somewhat workable Constitution-based country in Mesopotamia.

When do we fold? Well, I think we fold when progress is no longer being made, when we've exhaused our best options, and don't think it can be pulled off. We pull back to Kurdistan and let the Sunnis and Shiia duke it out and stay around for damage control. So long as the surge is working to quell violence and we allow the window for a political solution to take place...we just see if they can take advantage. If we put our best foot forward and fail, then we tried and lost, and it's bad for us and horrible for Iraq.