As any number of news reports since the surge began indicate, Bush is changing strategy in Iraq. The surge itself is a plan by the generals to overcome the previous problem of not securing the Baghdad area in the last four years.
It is a plan of the Pentagon generals, not a plan of the Bush administration.

The recommendations of the Iraq Study Group that Bush had previously ignored, are now on their way to becoming official policy.
And the largest obstacle during most of the war, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, has been fired since the November 2006 election, and replaced by a more pragmatic defense secretary who restores confidence in the war effort.

I think we can agree at this point that virtually anyone would rally more confidence than George W. Bush in guiding the Iraq War, due to his past mistakes, and due to Bush's following bad advice from key advisers, long past the point that he should have changed course, increased troop strength in Iraq and taken full control of the growing chaos there.

But it also bothers me that many of these voices on the liberal side have been undermining the notion we could win since before this war began !
Liberals have never even tried to endorse or come up with a winning stategy, they've just constantly undermined the effort to win in Iraq, offering no alternative strategy, other than retreat.
(again I ask: Would Germany be a democracy today if the same constant threat of us pulling out existed in 1945-1948? Even with comparatively less terrorism in Germany, the pockets of pro-Nazi intimidation of Germans --assassinations, bombings, abductions, attacks-- lasted a full 3 years, and by the time it ended, the cold war was then kicking into high gear. The Germans would have cut a deal with either the Nazis or the Russians, if they thought we were going to retreat and abandon them, as is being proposed by liberals we do in Iraq.)

Why can't we retreat, you ask?

This is why:



This isn't Vietnam, where we could just leave. Islamic terrorism is a global phenomenon. And if we leave (as McCain has warned) Al Qaida will follow us home and attack inside the U.S.
The ABC report says this isn't just Taliban boasting. That other intelligence sources confirm this is a real threat, of cels waging terrorism inside the U.S.


And also, you assume a lot in saying Republicans are eager to pull out of Iraq. They're not. But they don't support the current state of the war.
72% of Americans not supporting Bush's handling of the war is NOT 72% of Americans wanting us to just pack up and leave Iraq.
And it sure as hell isn't 72% of House and Senate Republicans who push for that option either.

Again, relatively speaking, in more than 4 years of fighting, I don't think 3,401 military deaths are that high.
Again, that number doesn't even equal a single battle in W W II at Iwo Jima. It's barely half the casualties of that 5-week battle.
That liberals have been undermining the Iraq War for 4 years, largely for political partisan games, shows a lack of understanding on the part of Democrats for what is truly at stake. Regardless of Bush's past errors.

We have to win. I don't see any Democrat alternative that addresses that reality.