Prediction: America will withdraw from Iraq in 2009

[Donald Ian Rankin]

The American situation in Iraq is kind of like having a tiger by the tail - the situation is bad, it's slowly getting worse and worse as the tiger gets more and more angry, you can't hold on for ever, and the situation will get *spectacularly* worse when you let go.

At present, American troops are all that it holding Iraq together. They won't be able to hold it indefinately, and when they leave it will disintegrate.

Whoever is president at the point the troops leave will pick up a lot of the blame for that disintegration, despite it being inevitable (mostly - there are probably ways the departure could be handled to make it more or less serious, the most obvious one being that leaving sooner will almost certainly be better than later).

Bush is clearly determined that that isn't going to be him. He's going to keep the troops there until he's no longer president, so that he can claim that if he'd stayed on and remained in charge the war would have been fought to a "victory".

The Democrats can't do anything to prevent that. Not "don't have the spine to", not "have sold out and refused to", *can't*. They simply don't have the votes to force him to. So the troops will still be there in 2009.

However, the next president will be able to withdraw without losing political face (and unable to stay without doing so), and will almost certainly do so as fast as possible - starting in 2009, and finishing by 2010 at the latest, I'd imagine, although I'm anything but an expert.

Even if they're a Republican, I think that will so obviously be the only possible course of action that they'll take it.

[rfranklin]

1. No, permanent bases and the embassy fortress will remain...

"Withdrawal" will merely reduce the number of troops. The democrats (in Washington) are complicit in this adventure.

[Toots]

3. I believe you are correct

Clinton says she wants to reduce the force to seventy thousand troops instead of one hbudred and forty thousand but still a very large contingent. I don't believe there is any candidate that wants a complete withdrawel. We have built "enduring bases" there and the largest embassy in the world. We are there for the long haul so we best get used to it..Republicans with the aid of high level Democrats have really fucked over America..

[peacebird]

2. Somehow that doesn't comfort me given the rate at which our troops are DYING in Iraq

By end of 2009 we will have lost an estimated 3 THOUSAND more..... And that's just if the rate of deaths remains steady at what it has been the last couple months.