Ah, it's good to see some of that old "Bush/hate/speak" . We had some good times, didn't we? As the Iraq War rises higher and higher as a vital campaign issue, how can Obama and Hillary continue to wrap themselves in the white flag? Who is advising these poor saps? Can they really know nothing about ordinary Americans?

Well, their loss is McCain's gain. And America's. When Joe Lunchbox enters the voting booth, alone with his conscience, all the pretty rhetoric left outside, he (and usually she) votes to fight. The job is done when the Iraqi Army shows itself able to protect the peace in Iraq by fighting the insurgency with a minimum of help and support from US Servicemen/women. We are not there today. Period. How I wish there was another solution, and another exit strategy. Ah, politics.

I don't know whether to rate this a 1 or a 5 and it all depends on the "whatever that means" qualifier. Certainly, as others have said, the US has a responsibility to clean up.

As FWY said, the job is undefined, and it seems to me that the US may define the 'job being done' in a different fashion to the local Iraqi government.

Example: Is the 'job done' if violence has abated and a democratic Iraqi government is in place with strong ties to Iran - a scenario which is becoming more and more likely? Or is it not more likely that the job will not be considered done by the US, until the Iraqi government is more ideologically in line with the US, and that will certainly not be easy to achieve.

"Until the job is done." Macho-American horesh*t mostly (but not always) spoken by those who have never, ever fired a shot in anger or considered civilian casualties in Iraq. Hey kids- have enough people died for you to consider putting tough-guy euphemisms and slogans to rest?

I did not agree with the decision to go to Iraq, and I think the cost has, and will continue to outweigh the benefit.

However....

Pulling out precipitously would be every bit as irresponsible as going in was in the first place. Having destabilized the country, it is very much the responsibility of the U.S. to stay until a reasonable assurance of stability can be regained, in much the same way that the Allied powers did in Germany post WW2. I don't suggest for a moment it will be an easy task, nor a task without cost and pain, but it is the only "right" course that I can see.

Compare what is going on in Iraq today to what was going on two or three years ago. Then, U.S. Marines were pretty much the only thing putting up a fight against insurgents. Today, there are thousands of Iraqis fighting side by side with them. There is now a stable police force, which gets help from roughly 91,000 in the Sons of Iraq. Like it or not, and I know there are some that don't, things are getting better. When this whole thing started, there wasn't anybody saying it was going to be easy or quick. It was a country that was basically starting over again; no military, no police force, and no government. To leave now would destroy everything that has been built over the last five years and piss it away, right at a time when some very important issues are working themselves out.

Nobody likes war and it's not an easy thing to support, especially when it lasts as long as this one has. With the possible exception of the Revolutionary War, this country has probably never been more united in a time of war than it was during World War II. Even then, support was starting to waiver after about 3 years. I don't expect anyone who didn't support going into Iraq to begin with to agree with this or think that it's right, but I also don't expect those same people to come up with a legitimate reason why bailing out now would be the right thing to do.