It has been crystal clear to me since right after the re-election of George W. Bush in 2004 that the Iraqi war was not going to go away until someone else was occupying the White House. Simply, in bully schoolyard tactics, Junior has said for years…if I don’t leave Iraq, I can’t be blamed for leaving Iraq and admitting mistakes. January 9th - 2009 - Mission Accomplished. I still don’t understand why the rest of the country doesn’t get this!!!

“Six Months” Without End

The next six months in Iraq are crucial — and always will be. That noise you heard yesterday on Capitol Hill was the can being kicked further down the road leading to January 2009, when George W. Bush gets to hand off his Iraq fiasco to somebody else.

 It’s clear by now that playing for time is the real White House strategy for Iraq. Everything else is tactical maneuver and rhetorical legerdemain - nothing up my sleeve - with which the administration is buying time, roughly in six-month increments. Appearing before a joint hearing called by the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees, Gen. David H. Petraeus probably won the respite Bush wanted when he said that U.S. military objectives “are in large measure being met.”