The drawdown will begin after these elections and will continue to accelerate until our own that midterm elections next November. This has long been planned. The drawdown after the December 15 elections in Iraq cannot be used to signal a change in strategy in Iraq because they had long been planned. But the overall idea of substituting Iraqi forces for American forces has long been the objective of American military planners. When that occurs, the American presence will be limited to air power, special ops and intelligence with Iraqi boots on the ground .
The Iraqis will absorb the bulk of the casualties and the Americans will exert a huge amount of control over the war as we will fund it, provide intelligence, and the air power and other equipment which is absolutely essential. So long as the governing class in Iraq needs these American assets, we will be able to stay in Iraq with ever decreasing casualty levels.
If Bush chooses not to follow this course, the author is perfectly correct when he says the politics will force him out of Iraq. Senators like Hegel on the Republican side will give the Democrats cover and the momentum will increase against the war. To the degree that Bush feels frustrated by the state of affairs, he should look in the mirror because it's his own passivity over the past few months which has undercut his ability to wage war in Iraq.
And, as I posted here often before the last election which Bush so narrowly won, the mainstream media had nearly succeeded in convincing the American people that a level of 1200 fatalities was an insupportable burden for a nation of 300 million. After the election, Bush dropped the cudgels and left the field to the media and the Democrats and now his ability to conduct foreign policy has withered.
The Democrats know this is the plan and they are trying to convert a successful "Irakization" of the war into an ignominious "bug-out" for shameless political advantage.
