Zink, (President, VQPF), wonders when it will be over:
Will America just pull up stakes and leave the Iraqis to sort their mess out?
Yes, I believe that once Iran tests its nuclear weapon, we will have to pull out. If the neocons had been successful in winning deep and wide support for the Iraqi Occupation, then we would have widened the war into Iran already. Once Iran has nukes, that option is lost as the North Korean example shows that we will not risk conflict with a nuclear power.
The fact that Kristol and his world democratic revolution crowd are attempting to throw Rumsfeld under the train suggests that they are growing increasingly desperate and fearful that the president will declare mission accomplished after the Iraqi elections – as it is and he should – and pull most of our troops out leaving nothing but a face-saving rear guard behind.
But if our purpose is to instill democracy, then the elections will indicate that our job is done. If the Iraqi people will not fight to keep their “freedom”, then they should not keep it. Certainly, we have not fought to keep the many freedoms we have lost. As for the would-be love children of Leon Trotsky and Woodrow Wilson, dismiss Pat Buchanan’s criticisms at your own risk. His analysis of the death of Europe is the most cogent out there and it is possible that as with his assertion of the culture war in 1988, what looks like insanity is more often than not early recognition. I often don’t agree with him, but I am always careful to have another look at my own thinking when I find it directly in conflict with his.