Source: Boston Globe

GLOBE EDITORIAL

Lesser evils and an exit strategy

July 10, 2007

PUBLIC OPINION and the open dissent of more and more
Republican senators are forcing the Bush administration to
reconsider its military strategy in Iraq -- and its vague,
dilatory timetable for troop reductions. The time has come
for President Bush to face reality. The key decisions he
must make now are not about staying the course, but
about the best ways to reduce the numbers and the
combat role of US troops.

It is pointless for Bush to go on complaining that the
commanding general in Iraq, David Petraeus, needs more
time to make his clear-and-hold operations in Baghdad
work, or that the electoral anxieties of congressional
incumbents should not determine US policy in Iraq. A
virtue of the democratic system Bush has sought to export
to the Middle East is that, at regular intervals, it allows
the people to call their representatives to account.

Bush's war of choice in Iraq is now in its fifth year. The
military cannot sustain current force rotations beyond next
spring and the benchmarks for progress set out in legislation
this past spring are not being met. The need to craft the
least calamitous exit strategy cannot be postponed any
longer. Indeed, the longer Bush refuses to start planning
for the endgame in Iraq, the narrower the options and the
more daunting the task.

-snip-

The reality that has to be confronted is that the disparate
armed groups in Iraq will go on committing atrocities against
civilians as US troops begin withdrawing, and a residual
American force hunkers down in a few well-guarded bases.
Should the mayhem reach a certain point, Iraq's neighbors
will come under pressure to intervene, if not directly,
then by proxy. There is also a possibility that Iraq will
devolve into a chronic failed state in the mode of Somalia.
And Iranian influence may grow, at least in the south of
Iraq, in proportion to the sectarian mayhem.

Nevertheless, America's time as an occupying power in Iraq
has run out. ...

-snip-

Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2007/07/10/lesser_evils_and_an_exit_strategy

Uh no.

Wait, let me rephrase that:

Fuck No. Get The Fuck Out.

Thank you.