Can we all get real about why Bush is "Staying the Course" in Iraq?

[Atman]

The super-embassy isn't finished. We must "stay the course" until our presence in the Middle East is permanent and intractable. We're never leaving. Ever. Get used to it. The only reason BushCo isn't at least pretending to leave is because the job isn't done. It was NEVER about "democracy" or even "WMD." It was about the Super-Embassy. It was about getting a permanent presence there. That is in part why we're so simpathetic to the plight of the Jews...we'll be next, an island in a sea in which we don't belong. And then, when we start getting attacked as Israel does, it will give us perpetual excuses to keep fighting back and keeping the wars going.

[GeorgeGist]

1. Any moron can declare a war...

it takes a wise man to undeclare one.

[MrModerate]

2. Yeah, but it didn't work out that way . . .

And despite the superembassy, we're not going to be able to maintain a military presence in the country for much longer. Whoever wins in 2008 will have done so with a solid plank in their platform of reducing the bleeding and spending on the Iraq fiasco.

Whether Georgie is in touch with reality enough to realize it or not, his fantasies have already crashed to the ground. Not that I'm saying that such a war could ever have been won, but it was definitively lost within a week of Saddam's statue coming down. If you want a pinpoint in time, the day the national museum was first looted would be a convenient one.

[Efilroft Sul]

3. I thought we were now adapting to win?

At least that's what Closet Ken Mehlman said all Sunday long.

Atman, you're right. We have to stay the course because there's oil under that thar course! To do so, America must establish a permanent presence in Mesopotamia (can't even call it Iraq anymore) with the Super Embassy -- which will really be an armed-to-the-teeth fort -- and 14 military bases. These sites, as you said, will invite constant attacks and thus provide the neocon rationale for maintaining the Permawar on Terra.

This kind of thinking is opening up new frontiers in the study of mental disorders.

[Jacobin]

4. Methinks the Iraqis may have a say in that decision

In fact, I think they are already 'speaking' rather loudly.

Just as the Soviets were finally run out of Afghanistan, the U.S. will be run out of Iraq, through relentless and ruthless guerilla warfare. Having a few islands of soldiers behind 20 foot concrete blast walls in a hostile country is not a 'presence'...it is a tactical nightmare and one that cannot be sustained.