Originally Posted by metalted

I am not worried about afghanistan at all, Iraq is now mop up operation, now we can focus on afghanistan. I imagine it will be a far easier task then Iraq.

Originally Posted by DoctorsBill

I'm not sure what Iraq you're referencing, but it surely isn't the one that exists today as a burgeoning democracy with a nascent market economy and an increasingly professional armed forces.

We've won the battle of Iraq, and your buddy Obama will admit that as soon as its politically expedient for him to do so. AQI and their Shi'ite cousins trained and armed by Iran have been degraded to the point that they are nothing more than organized crime organizations. They can cause a dustup here and there and kill a bunch of civilians with a coward's bomb, but they're strategically defeated and thoroughly discredited. The rejection of AQI by Iraqis has proved a powerful force the world over in defeating that ideology, much more powerful than the left's gullible acceptance of breathless reports from intimidated local officials charging that Coalition forces are blindly bombing women and children (ROE calls for "eyes on target" and bombs don't fly unless collateral damage is limited relative to the objective achieved).

Provincial elections will be held in January and we will witness a largely peaceful transfer of local power all across the country. In December, national elections will be held for the third time. The army is commited to the (flawed by western standards, sure) Constitution and committed to the destruction of extremists whether they be Sunni, Shi'a, or PKK.

The remaining sticking point will be Kirkuk, and bluster will fly on all fronts, especially the MSM as they await their coveted "civil war in Iraq." But in the end, the Iraqi elders will prevail and come up with a suitable compromise as they have done numerous times before when the situation reached a boiling point.

No matter who's elected in November, American forces will be coming home in carefully planned waves over the next three years. They will leave behind not the killing field that would have emerged under the reckless withdrawal plans of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid axis, but rather the best hope the world has had in decades for civilization to re-emerge in the center of gravity of the Muslim world.