Do As We Say...

Iraq stands up against U.S.

Is this what W keeps talking about as the magic moment in which we get to stand down?

I am bewildered that this news is causing barely a blip, let alone the outrage it should. On the same day that dire predictions were being made about the Iraqi security forces likely needing another 40 years or so to be independently operational due to infiltration by insurgents, the day after reports that US-supplied weapons are quickly ending up in those insurgents' hands and used against our personnel, al-Maliki sets a deadline for us to effectively end the search for a missing soldier in Muqtada al-Sadr Land. And we comply. And all the newshounds can bay about is John Kerry's lame joke at a speech in California.

So let me see if I understand this. Setting a hard deadline for withdrawal from Iraq would leave the job unfinished and would dishonor the thousands of deaths and maimings our forces have suffered, but acquiescing to al-Maliki's deadline for us to withdraw from the search for a soldier who might still be alive doesn't leave anything unfinished? It doesn't dishonor the Army's dictum that no man be left behind? It doesn't appease one very specific extremist and his Mahdi Army?

Oh, right. The missing soldier is of Iraqi descent, and is married to an Iraqi woman. He must not count, then.