Iraqi Logic

We're not willing to colonize Iraq, sending vast portions of our population to dwell there permanently.

We're not willing to sack it completely or kill half the population.

And the President isn't willing to leave.

I hate to be brutal about it, but those are our options. You see why so many of us are "defeatists"? We're the same kind of defeatists that oversaw the evacuation of Dunkirk. No soldier wants to admit defeat, but if this is all part of a larger conflict, why break our army on a sideshow? I don't need to remind you what kinds of commanders have wasted strategic strength on symbolic victory.