About "the surge" in Iraq

[From 1/15/08, in response to a William Kristol column about the success of the surge in Iraq.]

To the editor:

While William Kristol and his fellow neocons crow about how the stupid Democrats got it wrong about the surge in Iraq, I note that they offer no timetable for . . . well, for anything.

Meanwhile, according to the January 15 New York Times, Iraq’s defense minister has said that his nation will be unable to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012 and unable to defend its own borders from external threat until at least 2018.

The promise that U.S. troops can withdraw once “order is restored” in Iraq—once peddled by the neocons—has now been turned on its head. In fact, the reverse is true: The more calm there is, says the Kristol crowd, the more Iraq can be part of an American empire in the Middle East. So why withdraw at all?

Kristol and the neocons appear to support a war without end and a permanent occupation of Iraq. John McCain has been saying on the campaign trail that the American people would accept U.S. troops remaining in Iraq for a hundred years. Do you support that, Enquirer reader?