Yesterday, Dubya gave his "stay the course" speech for the nth time. Dem respondents gave great critiques, but continue to parrot the "we must succeed" line.
WTF?
The (non-partisan) line should be: "IRAQ must succeed."
But in the meantime, the left needs to grab it.
Right now, our troops (and contractors) are the ones primarily fighting and dying in Iraq, but that doesn't mean that the only way for Iraq to succeed as a stable country is for US to succeed.
We really can't afford to buy in to this us-or-them, or us-and-no-one-else type thinking. It's worse than unproductive, it's harmful, constraining, and wrong. There are other options.
Juan Cole has been working out his "UN option". That may or may not be the answer, but we should be talking about this and other ideas.
If we can withdraw AND Iraq can become stable, I call that a win even if U.S. forces don't secure a capitulation treaty from Iraqi insurgents or terrorists of whomever the frig we are fighting over there!
Of course this administration won't do it. Of course they want the U.S. to stay there and keep those 14 permanent military bases fully taffed.
but when we emphasize that Iraq needs to succeed and offer ideas that they will reject, it will be more clear that the Right won't sacrifice their Iraqi bases for a stable Iraq; they won't sacrifice a perceived U.S. military "win" for a stable Iraq.