There is no effective national government in Iraq. The current group meeting inside the Green Zone to draft the constitution has no real clout. True power is held by tribal chieftains and religious leaders scattered around country. Those leaders are playing both sides of the fence—keeping a toe in the political negotiations in Baghdad while providing money and protection to insurgents.
Staying the course and enduring further casualties while the insurgency grows stronger is an insane policy. If we persist on that front we will end up strengthening the hand of Islamic extremists and their role within the Iraqi insurgency.
The Bushies keep beating that drum about how we can't just "cut and run" because that will mean abandoning our pledge to the Iraqi's and making all of our dead soldiers deaths have been in vain. It is a compelling argument that works on many Americans, especially those who have loved ones in harms way or who have lost loved ones in this war. But by buying into this argument we continue to allow ourselves to be manipulated by the administration and it keeps our soldiers dying in some illogical homage to the soldiers who preceded them.
