I recently read Fred Kaplan’s We Can Leave Iraq by 2007 article in Slate. It discusses pulling our troops out of Iraq, not because it’s a quagmire we’re about to lose but “to force the Iraqi government to start taking their sovereignty seriously.” It reminds me of William Saletan’s article from June 28: Stand Aside: It’s time for welfare reform in Iraq, arguing that we need a withdrawal time table in order to let the Iraqis begin to take care of themselves. Only this time it’s really going to happen.

How is the left going to portray this? Of course, to them, it’s a plot to win the midterm elections. You know what? Maybe it is. Yet “it also has the virtue of being a good idea,” as said in the article. So, you will hear the Democrats vociferously complain in the media, but they’ll still go along with it. Once again, they’ve been outmaneuvered by the Republican Party. The Republicans get to have their cake and eat it too, while the Democrats are left cluelessly rationalizing why they have no cake at all.

This is the right move for Iraq. The so-called “insurgents” will cease to be battling an occupying force and will be seen as attacking the new, legitimate Iraqi government. The movement will fall apart once it lacks any sympathy from the common people, who want democracy, and the foreign terrorists will be seen as just that, not “insurgents.”