Why we should but won't leave Iraq soon

Recently, the Shrub was backed into a corner by ABC's George Stephanopoulos, and asked if he could compare the situation in Iraq to, say, the Vietnam Tet offensive (which was one of the pivotal moments for the beginning of the end of Mr & Mrs John Q Public’s support for that little fracas), as proposed by Tom Friedman, idiot savant of The New York Times.

"He could be right," the president said. "There’s certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we're heading into an election."

"George, my gut tells me that they have all along been trying to inflict enough damage that we'd leave," Bush said. "And the leaders of al Qaeda have made that very clear. Look, here's how I view it. First of all, al Qaeda is still very active in Iraq. They are dangerous. They are lethal. They are trying to not only kill American troops, but they're trying to foment sectarian violence. They believe that if they can create enough chaos, the American people will grow sick and tired of the Iraqi effort and will cause government to withdraw."

What a moron. According to the Shrub, we can’t leave until the Iraqis step up, no matter how many dead Americans it takes, but the Iraqis won’t step up until we leave, but we aren’t leaving until they step up (no matter how many dead Iraqis it takes), so we’re going to stay the course until they’re stepped-up, or everybody is dead, no matter how long it takes. Yikes.

Anyway, here’s how we get out:

Anthony Arnove's Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal begins by acknowledging that the parallels being drawn between Vietnam and Iraq are not exact, but still significantly similar. ''In both cases, the greatest military power in human history has encountered the limits of its ability to impose its will on a people who do not welcome its intervention. In Iraq, like Vietnam, soldiers themselves have begun to question the rationale for the war given by politicians and daily echoed by the dominant media.''

He ends his book by calling for immediate, unconditional withdrawal. Just fucking leave, and let the Iraqis sort it out; it’s their miserable little, oil-rich country, after all. Lt Gen William Odom agrees, and he is a general, which means he knows about military stuff.

But there’s a snag; because of the oil, Democrats (especially Hillary Rodham Clinton) are going to be dragging their feet (they call that being a "moderate"), regardless of what they perceive their mandate to be as a result of the upcoming elections:

''Politicians and planners in Washington know that their ability to intervene in other countries will be severely hampered if the United States is forced from Iraq,'' partly explains why the Democratic Party talks about ''winning'' the war -- ''a position that ties it in knots and leaves it incapable of leading any antiwar opposition.''

We all know that the Shrub has two more years to start WWIII, so Iraq or no Iraq, even Iran, we need to get him gone first. But that’s a problem, too. Michigan Rep. John Conyers is frothing at the mouth to hang the son of a bitch, but Dear Nancy has called impeachment hearings "off the table."

See you at the polls.