What a crock, his putting the elections in the scare-quote of "elections". The first elections that are real in an Arab country in a dog's age, and he sneers.
The elections are going to be phony, and you seem to care more for the Iraqi people than I do.
My first concern is for US. If we can win and avoid civilian deaths, even better. But I am angry when a Marine dies there's a good chance that additional air power could have prevented his death.
Japan seems to be our friend, even though we had to nuke two of their cities.
Bottomline that people have to accept is this, IMO. Iraq must go through a civil war. Laws without government are useless, and governments that cannot provide their own security are inoperable.
We cannot stop it from happening, but the longer we stay in the middle of it the higher our death count will go for no reason.
You can point to Iraqi National Guard successes, and I can point to failures. Bush and Rumsfeld have admitted recently that they are not close to being "ready" to perform on their own.
I think the war in Iraq is one small battle in the WOT, and quitting there doesn't mean we've lost the war, but if we commit years and years to that country, AQ et al will have time to rebuild itself elsewhere.
I think it's time to choose one or the other, defeating AQ et al while it's weakened, or democratizing Iraq.