I am not as optimistic. I think the radical left from the 60's has control of the Rats and they are saying immediate withdrawal and submit to the UN.
The Jewish/Palestinian conflict has been going on for 60 years. Have you seen much change from 60 years ago to today?
Yes. The Israelis keep giving away land they gained after being attacked and the demographics (birth rates) are working against them. Also the core generation that fought for the land after WWII are dead or dying and the following generations don't have the same strength.
WM: I am not as optimistic. I think the radical left from the 60's has control of the Rats and they are saying immediate withdrawal and submit to the UN.
My view is that if either RAT gets in that SOMEBODY will clue them in that it will all be on them and the DIMS if they evacuate the troops out prematurely and then the whole country falls apart and the real bad guys will have a long term home base. THEN what will they do? It would be suicide politically. I think they both want to use the PUBLIC threat of pulling out as leverage on the Iraqi government to get its act together quickly to the point of it at least being plausible to remove our troops, or most of them.
I do think we're going to have to have some presence there for quite a while though. We can't have our civilians and contractors unprotected, and if a bunch of them start getting killed because of insufficient support, then the RATS will get blamed for that too. But even after those projects are basically done, I don't see how we can totally leave anytime soon. Iraq would have to look like a totally different country than it does now.