LAtimes: Iraq hasn't even begun (everything people need to know about Ipaq imo)

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Iraq hasn't even begun

Consequences from the disaster we could have avoided will plague the world long into the future.

By Timothy Garton Ash, TIMOTHY GARTON ASH, a contributing editor to Opinion, is professor of European studies at Oxford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
July 19, 2007

raq is over insofar as the American public has decided that most U.S. troops should leave. In a Gallup poll earlier this month, 71% favored "removing all U.S. troops from Iraq by April 1 of next year, except for a limited number that would be involved in counter-terrorism efforts." CNN's veteran political analyst, Bill Schneider, observes that in the latter years of the Vietnam War, the American public's basic attitude could be summarized as "either win or get out." He argues that it's the same with Iraq. Most Americans have now concluded that the U.S. is not winning. So: Get out.

Because this is a democracy, their elected representatives are following where the people lead. Although the Democrats did not get the result they wanted in an all-night marathon on the floor of the Senate, from Tuesday to Wednesday this week, no one in Washington doubts that this is the way the wind blows. Publicly, there's still a sharp split along party lines, but leading Republicans are already breaking ranks to float their own phased troop-reduction plans.

President Bush says he's determined to give the commanding general in Iraq, David Petraeus, the troop levels he asks for when he reports back in September, and the White House may hold the line for now against a Democrat-controlled Congress. Leading Republican contenders for the presidency are still talking tough. However, the most outspoken protagonist of hanging in there to win in Iraq, John McCain, has seen his campaign nosedive. Even if the next president is a hard-line Republican, all the current Washington betting will be confounded if he does not, at the very least, rapidly reduce the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. After all, that's what the American people plainly say they want.

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This Oped so concisely covers the Iraq debacle from the beginning all the way up today, and then extends forward to provide an amazingly concise overview. This is what people in Amuraka need to understand: IT's OVER!