I don't know what they are SUPPOSED to run on, but they will run on the ineptitude of the Bush Administration in "setting off" a bloody civil war, which could have been prevented if he had followed the sage advice of Democrats to first create an alliance with Europeans before blundering into Iraq without a plan.

Unless the Bush Administration starts to undercut that strategy now, then I think the Democrats will do reasonably well in the 2006 elections. Your implied assumption is that Americans will not care enough about the Iraqi Civil War if American troops are not at risk. (1) significant American troops will probably still be at risk. (2) the MSM will create the illusion that a caring moral people "should" care and that Democrats represent those people. As I say the Bush Administration can overcome that, but given the present inarticulateness of the Administration I have my doubts. Only part of the argument relates to the relative maliciousness of Saddam (a plus for the Administration which the left is presently attempting to nullify).

h:

Yeah, their polls show the American people will vote to truckle to the UN and France.

"truckle"?

You're kidding of course. This is where you and I part, I think Americans are perfectly capable of falling to a supine position before the UN or Europe. How else do you explain Bill Clinton snapping to attention, when Europe was concerned about the difficulties in Bosnia or Kosovo? Because Americans felt this threatened their interests? Yeah sure.

H-man is on to something. Further, the Democrats engaged in this "pull out" charade for the express purpose of taking credit for it when it happened.

Bush/Cheney would have been much better of just saying so, but feel they have to play the "the we can't show weakness" card.

This guarantees their appearance of weakness to both Dems and AQ. From a purely PR view, the Nixon strategy was better. Declare victory and go home.

Bush/Rove are cheesing it OJ.

Bruno:

Yes, if you bought into the neocon/Leftist dream/nightmare of Empire, then you should feel betrayed. If you listened to the President then the idea of Iraqis running their own country is being realized.

h:

the UN and Europe opposed our intervention in the Balkans.

What the Democrats will do now, when they hear three divisions may be pulled out, is simply try to up the ante -- they won't do a full-body Murtha, but they'll start harping on why Bush doesn't withdraw five, or six, or 10 divisions. So the administration will have to go through and explain the stategerie of why some divisions are leaving and others are staying, but odds are the Democrats won't be able to articulate anything more than naming a higher number than three, and will depend on hoping the Iraqis continue to be too inxeperienced/inept to handle their own defense in order to place Bush in a bind going into the 2006 election cycle, leaving him stuck between troop withdrawls and increased internal violence.

All one has to do is reduce the dead to one a day from 2. The American people will be satisfied with that and will vote their other interests which is not bad for the GOP in most places.

When have the American people voted based on how many foreigners are dying?

John:

Democrats aren't going to play up the troop withdrawals once they start.

How does the average, non-political junkie, voter know what the heck to think? They read the papers and watch the news and get the skewed picture the left wants them to see and then they vote their consciences on that false intel.

How do Republicans win? Beats the heck out of me. Maybe I'll have to look into that God thing that oj thinks is so important. God knows, I've ruled out everything else.

OJ --

Not after they start, but they'll make that claim up until the pull-out does begin.

Once the withdrawls start, the spin will change, and any incident inside Iraq will be played up by the Democrats and the big media outlets as the Second Coming of Fort Sumner that proves the whole mission was a failure.

If Iraq does turn into a hell after the draw-down then it will have been a failure.

However, if it takes even halting steps to move forward, Bush and the the war backers can ask the Dems "What's the matter, are you sad you didn't produce boat people this time around?"

The Cairo meeting has been completly mis-understood and mis-represented by the MSM. What else is new?

Iraq will elect a permanent parliament under its new constitution in about 3 weeks, and form a permanent government. That government will determine how long and in what role American troops will be asked to stay, or go, as the case may be. At that point it will no longer be up to WaPo or off-sites in Cairo.

At the beginning of this year, there were about 150,00 American servicemen in Germany and another 75,000 in South Korea. Those numbers are now being reduced, 2 generations after the ends of wars in those countries.

By the end of next year, the front lines of the war will be occupied by the Iraqi Army, however it will be some time before Iraqi army units go into battle without US advisers on hand. It will also rely on US troops for logistical, air and ccc support.

Experience indicates that it takes about a decade to suppress an insurgency. It will also take another 10 to 15 years, before the Iraqi army will be fully stand alone, because it will take that long to train a corps of Officers and NCOs of high quality who will be able to train their successors.

Our choices are limited, we can either see this thing though until there is a stable republican government in Iraq, with a decent stand-alone army, and the insurgency is largely suppressed or we can deal with the blowback after we bail out. The casualties in the bail-out scenario will far exceed those in the see-it-through scenario and they will be civilians who never left the United States mainland.

Robert is very much correct about this. We need to keep in mind that this is not a matter of "exit, in the sense of total bugout, but rather of turning ovwer ground ops (not including the security of our our forces) the the Iraqis.

Suppression of the "insurgents" ls a function of how energetically the Iraqis the Iraqis will persue this goal. Inasmuch as they are suffering the most from terrorist activity, there is no reason to expect them to be gentle.

Bugout is an extremely bad option, for the Worthy Oriental Gentlemen of the world will be emboldened to believe that they can defeat us, whereever and whenever, by "asymmetrical" warfare. We need final victory not to have to repeat this again and again.

Robert:

I agree completely, but isn't the number in Korea about 38,000 (about half the 75,000 you mentioned)?