We are definitely in a race. We would have bought a lot of time if we would have crushed the Falluja uprising several months ago.
At some point we are going to have to revisit that blown opportunity and eliminate the bad guys there in a very public and definitive way.
What I don't understand is why its taking so long to build up a decent Iraqi security force. We trained, equipped and fielded a military of fifteen plus million in about 4-5 years in World War 2. But we barely have 100k Iraqis after a year.
Made up of Americans who treasured liberty and our beloved homeland.
I do not believe, and I never have believed, that a population sufficiently virtuous to win and then defend freedom exists in the former Ottoman provinces of Mosul, Mesopotamia, and Basrah which are now together commonly called "Iraq".
The reason we cannot build up a decent Iraqi security force is because there are no such people as "Iraqis".
We cannot train a "decent Iraq security force" because few Iraqis will kill their countrymen for Americans.
There is a lot of chest beating about "victory" on threads like this. Particularly from people who haven't grasped that in 40 years of rule Israel has failed to pacify the West Bank and Gaza and failed to create a non-PLO Palestinian political authority.