right-wing pundits are beginning to call for leaving Iraq

In my daily reading of right-wing publications I am noticing a 'new direction' beginning to emerge. Naturally, one could find lots of left-leaning authors advocating leaving Iraq, but when it makes the right-wing journal contributors it makes me pause and think 'hmmm'. I don't pretend to be a military strategist, but it is beginning to appear the peace movement may have had it right with all those nationally organized protests a few years ago BEFORE Bush's Folly became such a disaster. Rather then make this a 'yes we should, no we shouldn't' thread perhaps it would be helpful for readers to post other RIGHT-WING postings advocating a 'new direction'. Any NEW direction, and if no new direction is proposed by those who so strongly and consistently advocated war, perhaps we could at least show that now they have come to their senses.

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=10657

There is no victory in Baghdad. It lies in Tehran and Damascus. Let's make it simple: win or come home. Every American president has a sacred obligation to our troops: spend their lives if you have to, but don't waste them. No more should be spent creating democracies.



http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_4717399

But, yes, even the U.S.A. screws up sometimes. The invasion of Iraq, for instance, will go down in history as a national transgression of epic proportions - and our original screw-up (an unjustified invasion based on cooked intelligence books) was compounded many times over by our failure to plan for the reconstruction of post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. We can withdraw quickly or slowly, all at once or in stages, but we should withdraw. If it makes anyone feel better, we can call it "strategic redeployment," and we can and should look for ongoing ways to use our financial resources and our technical expertise to help ordinary Iraqis and any legitimate, nonaggressive Iraqi government.

 

http://www.nationalreview.com/
Everybody’s Doing It. Recanting their support for the Iraq War, that is. Jonah Goldberg ’fessed up October 20, if only on the way to arguing that we must KBO.* I made my apology back in June. Bill Buckley was ahead of us all, famously declaring way back in July 2004 that: “If I had known back then in February 2003 what we now know I would not have counseled war against Iraq.â€We have to come to terms with our errors each in his own way. I have been consoling, and excusing, myself...


http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...12/827qrepu.asp
Nevertheless, a consensus is growing in Washington. There isn't really much difference between left and right: While Democrats Howard Dean, John Kerry, and John Murtha all wish for a rapid departure, former Republican Secretary of State James Baker will soon release his centrist "alternative," reportedly announcing that victory is impossible and our best bet amounts to "cut, pause, talk to the neighbors, and run." Conservative writers like George Will and William F. Buckley long ago gave up on the idea that the United States could help build a democratic government in Iraq. Fewer and fewer among the nation's political and intellectual elites believe that "staying the course" in Iraq advances the war against terrorism and our national interests in the Middle East.

...But the summary certainly implied that things aren't good and that Iraq has become a rallying cry among Sunni holy warriors. It raises legitimate questions. If abandoning Iraq would reduce the terrorist threat to the United States and leave the Middle East in better shape, then that course would be compelling.

Before March 2003, much of the counterterrorist community had already decided that an American-led war in Iraq would harm the West's counterterrorist efforts. Were they right? Is Iraq jet fuel for the anti-American hatred of jihadists? And if so, does that mean the United States should refrain from pushing policies that infuriate extremists across the Islamic world? What would be the likely strategic ramifications in the Middle East of a "redeployment" of U.S. forces out of Iraq?

Let us be absolutely clear: The war and its most tangible result--the empowerment of the Iraqi Shia and Kurds--have galvanized a Sunni jihadist cause in Mesopotamia. The Sunni will to power is a ferocious thing. Neither this magazine nor CIA and State Department analysts foresaw either the amplitude of this sentiment or the spread of fundamentalism among the Sunni community, widely deemed the bedrock of secularism inside Iraq. And the war has certainly provided riveting imagery and stories for Sunni holy warriors globally. It's reasonable to assume that the conflict has helped anti-American Sunni jihadists multiply their numbers.


But then there's our fearless leader sticking to his guns...

http://www.nysun.com/article/44441
Taking an apparent shot at Mr. Baker and Hamilton, both of whom subscribe to the realist foreign-policy school, Mr. Bush said, "This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all. We're going to help this government. … We have a government that wants our help and is becoming more capable about taking the lead in the fight to protect their own country."