To be fair, the withdrawal of troops is due to the request of the Iraqi "government" (no option there) and the desire of our President (and his party and much of the U.S.). Not sure what your point is (other than sarcasm). There are no really good solutions here and if that is your point, then I agree. However, there never is a really good solution when it comes to war. Since you only used what appeared to be sarcasm in your post, it is difficult to tell what you think the U.S. should do now (regardless of how it got into this mess) that would be best for Iraq and the rest of the world.

In fairness, Iraq is a mess - though even the news quote from NIck's post acknowledged that things in Iraq were "slightly" better than 5-7 years ago.

No one had an expectations of great progress right away....this is a part of the world that has been miserable for a very long time. But the people who criticize the ongoing violence in Iraq need to recognize how much worse things were under Hussein.

Ironically, it was Biden who, on Larry King a few months ago, made a comment about the "promising signs" in Iraq....this, of course, coming from a man who ripped Bush's actions, yet as VP now wants to speak of at least a few of the positive results.