I thought he did a good job of setting up the debate with McCain over what constitutes "victory" in Iraq. Good lead in to the general election. McCain is always loose with the phrase - Obama's gonna define it for him and expose the insanity of shooting for some perfect situation there before we can get out. Hillary, on the other hand, did a good job of protecting the Senate's prerogative for advice and consent on the agreement Bush is trying to forge before he leaves office. Which the Iraqi parliament gets to pass judgment on but the US Congress doesn't? So they're getting ready for their coming roles - he as a general election candidate and her as a fine senator.

30,000 troops isn't a residual force.  It's a suicide squad.  Or, maybe just Fort Apache Iraq.

What the hell could 30,000 troops do, except guard themselves?

Ambassador Crocker: bad public speaker or worst public speaker? My brain feels like it has been shaken a couple thousand times by all of his stammering, starting and stopping. What a useless exercise this thing was. Blah.

I think Chan it might be more like a trip wire force ala Korea. On the other hand reducing our force imprint might force the Iraqis to actually take political reconciliation seriously.

BSD

Yes.  Let me see now:

We can't cut the force levels because to do so would be to endanger the current "stability" in the security situation.

The current security "stability" enables to Iraqi "government" (who hide out in the Green Zone) to putz around because they are never going to have to sort out their future as long as we baby-sit them with 130,000 troops.

So the obvious thing is to tell them we are going to cut our involvement and they have to resolve their political issues if they want to have a country rather than interminable civil war.

But, lo, a problem:  apparently we can't tell them that because they aren't going to resolve anything, and if we cut force levels it will endanger the current "stability."

Victory in Iraq.  Requires permanent hand-holding by 20% of our land forces (and counting USMC).  And not counting troops within a year or returning or within a year of future deployment.

Bet you that as soon as a Democratic president grasps the nettle and starts working out how we can withdraw in good order, the Republicans will be shounting "Cut and run!  Cut and run!"

I'm in favor of a constitutional amendment that says that George W. Bush is to be stuck into a regular U.S. Army uniform and given the job of covering the ass of the last man to get out.

The Weekly Standard' s Matt Continetti and I did a bloggingheads debate last night in which we chewed