I've got a few problems with this thinking.
One, while a third of our ground combat power is tied down in Iraq, if we really had to, we could triple or quadruple our forces in combat by fully mobilizing and putting all active units into the fight. Remember that in World War II we did not rotate forces through Europe or the Pacific. At one time late in the war I think we had one uncommitted division in the United States as our strategic reserve. Everything else was committed. So saying we are tied down now doesn't compute. I wouldn't want to take such drastic action, but we could if our security required it.
Second, as General Abizaid noted recently, ground power is not the sum total of our power:
"We've got 200,000 in my area of operation. Not all of our sea power, not all of our air power, by any stretch of the imagination, is committed to my area," he said.
"Any opponent that would think that we're over-stretched and we can't deal with our military obligations would be making a dreadful mistake," he said.
We can still do a lot without committing many more ground forces under certain circumstances.
And third, who are these "tied down" people kidding? As if they would suddenly be hawks in regard to Iran or North Korea if we weren't fighting in Iraq! Their sorrowful "if only we weren't tied down in Iraq" complaints are simpy one more excuse not to support action against existing threats.
These critics have tied themselves up and love it. Heck, I'm sure they are still waiting to "solve" the Palestinian question before we do anything else.
