Will Bush Quit Iraq?

From CounterPunch courtesy of J. Orlin Grabbe:

After nearly two years eight US divisions can barely guard their own internal lines of communication or the road to Baghdad airport. There's talk of organizing death squads on the old Salvadoran model run by the CIA, but it's way too late for that option.

The casualty list swells with each day that passes; over 10,000 dead and maimed American troops.The torture scandals have been as devastating to America's international reputation as was the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. No one expects the situation to improve militarily and the prospect of civil war in Iraq looms. The war is politically unpopular here, as local newspapers and tv news stations carry weekly news of local boys killed or maimed.

And

If somehow the White House can claim that Iraq has now been led towards the "democratic" path then decorous retreat is conceivable. If the resistance makes further strides, if the Shia turn on the US, then retreat will be inevitable, with the only other option to the US being a draft here and a US force four times its present size. The war would become the all-consuming theme of Bush's second term.

It would be rational for the United States to start withdrawal in a month or two. But we are not dealing with rationality.

Click here for the rest.

I, for one, am already pretty much of the opinion that withdrawal is inevitable, and by that, I don't mean that we'll be pulling out because we've finally liberated the Iraqis. No. We'll be pulling out because the US cannot win this one. So, at this point, the only real question is not if, but rather, when the withdrawal begins: people are dying--billions of dollars that should be used for the rebuilding of Iraq and the poor here in America are being pissed away on a pointless pursuit. This is, indeed, quite irrational.

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