Pull Out

Remember back in 1995 when then- President William J. Clinton told the world that U.S. forces would spend just one year in Bosnia -- the folks there had 365 days to get their act together -- and then we're out of there. Well if you missed the news -- and you should have as it wasn't covered much by Big Media -- the U.S. finally pulled up stakes in Bosnia. For those mathematically challenged, that's a dozen years -- not one.

The point is not to slam the 42nd President --that's a cottage industry populated by right wing loonies. Further, that horse is dead, why continue to beat it? Besides Bill wasn't lying -- he was merely playing politics with the military.

The point is that the first 1 1/2 tiers (H. Clinton, B. Obama & J. Edwards) of the Democratic party are calling for a pullout of U.S. forces in Iraq like right now. However, they will settle for the last helicopter to fly from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on 19 January 2009. Just goes to show what happens when lawyers, without an iota of time in any of the services, run for President. (I guess that's why Wes Clark is keeping a low profile -- he'd be a handy VP to allay those concerned with the nominee's lack of national security experience.)

Why the rush? Couple of reasons -- President Bush, despite repeated addresses on the virtue of staying the course, has to compete with mounting casualties; Big Media's box-score keeping mentality (e.g., today's bombing was [location], X were killed, and Y were injured; film at 11); and that this conflict is now going on its fourth year.

As it stands right now, the Democratic presidential-wannabes are eager to pull out. If they assume the Oval Office, then politics gets tossed in favor of national security. They are not the one and the same. (A precedent of sorts was established by Clinton's Bosnian flip-flop. Admittedly the two situations are not perfectly analogous.) So here's the big reason -- no Democrat wants this on the "to-do" list on Inauguration Day. It's best for Bush to take the hit (i.e., "losing Iraq"). They certainly don't want to deal with the potential of a no-win situation early in their administration.

So what now? The surge from various accounts seems to be working. Further, Bush has shown no inkling that he's going to change course. (He doesn't seem to care much about his low poll numbers -- he's looking at history, not the election cycle.) More importantly, it doesn't seem that the Congress has the votes (or the will) to override him now -- as they don't want to be tarred with the "loser" sobriquet.

Expect more vitriolic attacks on the President's policy; furthermore don't expect him to make any changes anytime soon. When it comes to pulling out -- it took a dozen years to redeploy from a permissive environment -- it's going to take longer from a non-permissive environment.