Obama's comments on Iraq have more substance than anything else I've read, and that certainly includes Petraeus.
Some people are just so used to hearing mindless absolutes - with us or against us, victory or defeat, devils and angels - they have a hard time dealing with genuine thought and hard logic.
No matter what America does, it is not going to come out of Iraq covered in glory or success.
You can't have success when you try to do the wrong thing, the kind of ill-judged thing for which no resources are adequate, and the unbelievable amount of resources already squandered on Iraq are driving the American economy into the ground.
When the least competent president in American history made his I'll-show-you-Pop decision to invade, he started a ball rolling downhill that cannot be stopped.
No matter what the politically fine-tuned Petraeus says, Southern Iraq is going to fall under Iranian influence. The Iraqi Shia militias just showed what they are capable of, and the leader of the largest of these is utterly committed to the U.S. leaving. He won’t be patient indefinitely, and Petraeus’s sad little tactic of paying people to be quiet can’t go on for long.
It all goes to prove: if you elect a dumb president, you are going to pay for it, big time.
