Preempting Surrender

Secretary Gates hopes that those who want to run away from the enemy in Iraq can be persuaded to stick around long enough to help the Iraqis win:

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is seeking a political deal in Washington to trade off troop cuts in Iraq for support for a long-term, smaller presence there, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Citing unnamed US government officials, the Journal said that Gates and some political allies are pursuing political support for maintaining a US military presence in Iraq to continue the fight against Al-Qaeda.

The tradeoff, according to the report, is a commitment to slashing back troop levels -- now about 155,000 -- by the end of President George W. Bush's term in office, in January 2009. Gates's goal is to mollify the strong US sentiment for a pullout of US forces, while not abandoning Iraq altogether.

Given that I think the civil war worry is overblown, this might work. Besides, if enough in Congress are determined to surrender, we may need to take a risk to extend our will to fight.

And with al Qaeda a larger factor in the insurgencies than in the past, this focus probably wouldn't cripple our fight fatally.

Taking out Iran's mullahs would sure help, too.