Good News From Iraq

The situation is "not hopeless".

Here at this blog I supported the Iraq war under the reasons we were at first given--remember that business? "Weapons of mass destruction". Ha--the old ones really are funniest, aren't they?

Then came "links to terror"--I'd already fallen off the bandwagon by then--then "regime change", followed by "spreading democracy".

With a hundred people a week dying in Bagdhad all these excuses seem insufficient.

And with the war (and president ***) at an all-time low in popularity (except with AIPAC, for the moment) various people who want to keep their cushy jobs on Capitol Hill after the upcoming elections are now making rumblings about a timetable for departure. There's talk of bringing home a third of the forces currently stationed in Iraq.

Doubtless once the troops are gone (and let's face it, most of the coalition of the pressured have left already) Iraq will suddenly become a stable, just democracy under the rule of law and the love of freedom so well-demonstrated at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

So much for the "New Middle East". So much for stability. Even the politically expedient has taken a back seat to the desire of a small man to be a big one.