http://www.vicmord.com/index.html Great history lesson concerning the Popes comments on Islam in Germany. I dont necessarily endorse this view as I get the feeling that people may be exaggerating the effect Islam has or will have on Western democracies…

I wholeheartedly agree. That strategy is very simple: announce the immediate cessation of construction work on the US embassy and the network of military base projects, announce the immediate commencement of withdrawal of all US ground forces and support contractors, the withdrawal to be completed by an announced date certain six to nine months from today (the rough time frame it took to assemble the invasion force).

Removing American occupation forces – and taking the concrete steps on the ground in Iraq to demonstrate that this decision is sincere in irreversible – would instantly eliminate one of the major fault lines within Iraqi society (collaborationist vs non-collaborationist). The downscaling of US military operations would stop fueling the insurgency with more horror stories and more daily doses of collateral civilian carnage. Iraqi nationalists and their various militias can turn their attention to getting the rest of the foreigners (ie., al Queda and al Queda wannabes) to similarly leave Iraq.

If Iraqis then decide to kill one another rather than talk to one another, it’s their civil war, not ours. Our occupation presence can neither referee that civil war, nor determine its outcome by picking sides, any more than our forces there can avoid being caught up in the crossfire with no constructive military mission left to execute.

We will rightly be blamed by the people of Iraq as holding major responsibility for the sectarian bloodbath already taking place, and the bloodbath very likely yet to come.
But this strategy has the virtue of honesty (after so many lies have been told), and in the long run will do less harm than continuing an open ended military occupation of Iraq.
The entire history of the US post-invasion presence has been nothing but the setting of a series of time deadlines for the Iraqi political community to abide by. We should not get prissy about announcing a time deadline for terminating our own involvement in that country’s internal affairs.

As a bipartisan project, let’s remind George Bush that as a good cowboy he’s got to know when to hold, know when to fold, and know when to walk away.

And that time is sooner rather than later.

I wonder what comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq will be drawn post-partition, if it happens?