Success!!!

Tony Blair proposes a timeline for British withdrawal from Iraq and the White House declares this a success since the British are stepping down in Basra as the Iraqis are stepping up.

Granted, Baghdad and Basra are different in many different ways. For one, there's a prince who wants to join his Army mates in Basra, whereas seemingly no prince wants to join our troops in Baghdad. But the differences between Baghdad and Basra are really not the point. Blair could have just as easily declared that since Iran is smuggling weapons into Iraq through the south and Shiite factions are battling for control of the region surrounding Basra he'll need a troop surge to combat this mounting threat. And of course if this were such an existential war as it's made out to be by the right, you'd think the Brits would be interested in moving troops to Baghdad to share some of their "success" with our troops.

But no, Blair is doing exactly what the majority of Americans want our comander in chief to do: propose a withdrawal timeline whereby we first help secure Iraq's borders while not getting involved in the sectarian struggle in urban areas and then leave the country entirely. Why? Because our presence in Iraq has been and increasingly is becoming counterproductive to our security and foreign policy goals.