[MikeA]

For those advocating a policy of cut and run from Iraq such as Fat Murtha, they need only look to what Israel is experiencing now to see the folly in such a policy. Israel is now in a far more deadlier fight against a far more deadly enemy precisely because Ehud Barak allowed himself to be browbeaten by short-sighted Israeli public opinion and the Clinton administration into fleeing Lebanon before the job was done.

Israel now forced to return to unfinished business in Lebanon demonstrates an early exit from Iraq will put us back fighting a far deadlier war against a stronger, better armed and more entrenched enemy in the same place in a few years as the Israelis are finding.

America retreating from Iraq will not produce peace and pacify Al Qaeda any more than Israel's retreat from Lebanon mollified Hezbollah.

[Alberta's Child]

. . . Ehud Barak allowed himself to be browbeaten by short-sighted Israeli public opinion and the Clinton administration into fleeing Lebanon before the job was done.

That wasn't really the case at all. Israel withdrew from Lebanon because the cost of occupying the place was enormous -- and "short-sighted Israeli public opinion" was largely driven by the recognition that Israel would eventually bankrupt itself trying to wage a permanent military campaign in Lebanon.