Greenwald should stop whining so much about "ending the war in Iraq". He is now the equivalent of a Democratic "noise machine". The main events are Iran and US long-term interests in the region. He should be devoting his energy on those topics rather than worrying about what Gen. Petreaus' report this week will say. Everybody with a brain knows how this is going down and both Dems and Repugs will fall in line behind Bush/Patreaus. Why? Because the real unspoken purpose of the Iraq war was to build permanent US or firiendly bases in the Middle East to protect our oil interests and act as a counterweight to Iran and al-Qaeda. And on that account, we will likely be successful. It seems to me, that the base in Anbar where Bush visited will become a permanent US forward base for many, many years to come. On this point, Greenwald continously misses one of the long-term objective of this war which was to extend US MILITARY influence into the heart of the Middle East.

1. Greenwald should not be implying that the withdrawal of US from Iraq will "end the war" which is just as intellectually dishonest as thinking that we could actually "win the war".

2. Diplomacy is useless in Iraq because the Shia, Iran in particular, think they will eventually prevail at least in Shia territories so why negotiate. They would negotiate for only a tactical advantage, ie, let the US withdrawal "with honor" and then all hell breaks loose.

3. I am sure there is "an understanding" with the Saudis that the US will not leave the Sunnis totally exposed to the Shia unless the US wants to pay 10x for oil. The Saudis would be very happy with the US parked in western Iraq as opposed to Saudi territory.

4. Eventually the US will find a location or two in Iraq where we can coexist with the local population and not be perceived as occupiers or Crusaders or whatever. We do this all over the world in places such as South Korea, Japan, Germany, Philippines (no more), etc. etc.

5. In the event there is a negotiated settlement, I guarantee that it will not include a complete US withdrawal from Iraq because that does not meet our minimalist requirements for "withdrawal".

6. Iraq will be broken up but so what: lots of countries have been broken up in past 20 years.

6. Of course, the lefties like Greenwald, will go berserk because this smacks of classic "imperialism", but I believe the pragmatists like Hillary, Biden, and 80% of the American people will see this as the best deal we can cut and it will prevail.

You are both whining about Paglia's opening statements because she did not lead with the usual Greenwald or Kariya crap about war criminals occupying the White House, or better, the GWOT is a fraud ginned up by the Repugs to win elections. Don't you guys get tired of reading that crap everyday? She is right-on and unusually nuanced for a Salon regular contributor by actually crediting the current administration with a rare accomplishment...preventing a repeat of 9/11, perhaps by clandestine and secretive means.

What she is really saying is that once the Dems take control next year, and they will, not much is really going to change in terms of anti-terror policy because the Dems know that if something bad happens, and al-Qaeda is way overdue, the Repugs will be back in power for another 25-year stretch.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that regardless of who occupies the WH next, certain options will not move off the table.

Salon actually did a public service by posting this article because it provided a measure of nuance on a crtical subject that most other Salon feature writers either cannot do on their own or are not paid to do so. Can you imaging Gary Kariya or Glenn Greenwald tackling a topic as complex as this?

I don't think Bush will attack Iran directly because he can't succeed without a major military buildup way beyond the resources currently there, even if there is an "incident". During the cold war with the USSR there were always "incidents" but things got worked out without starting WWIII. Even though Iran is not what the USSR was, it is very formidable on the ground, has advanced military hardware that can sink an aircraft carrier and they have terrorist capabilities that we are well aware of. Iran has long-range missiles that can strike Israel if they want to expand the war. The war in Lebanon was a preview to a land war with Iran which the US cannot win without hundreds of thousands of land troops. The Revolutionary Guards are considered "elite" - are well-trained and disciplined and will fight to defend the revolution. In other words, this is not a "pushover" like Saddam's idiotic Republican Guard units.

However, having said all this against attacking Iran, if I were Iran, I would be worried that the US would attack and occupy the oil industry part of the country which I understand is mostly located in a few places around the Gulf. This would put the stranglehold on Tehran that would be felt big-time and cut-off their ability to finance their foreign policy.

If you think Bush is rough on 1st amendement rights, wait till Hillary becomes president. I don't see Joe C. pointing a finger in her direction.

Unfortunately, Gen. Petraeus was caught in the middle of a bitter political struggle over Iraq. Petraeus has the obligation to testify before Congress on Iraq and speak his mind objectively. MoveOn decided to demonize Patraeus and by inference the military by using a loaded term such as "betrayal" in a stupid attempt to derail meaningful debate on Iraq. Now the arch-liberals are going berserk because some of the Dems are opposed to vitriol instead of serious debate on Iraq.

The Dems know that the American people know the difference between the performance of the military versus that of the politicians.