et said:

"New Iraq is likely going to teeter and fall as soon as ~140,000 U.S. troops leave. "

If we cut-and-run, then Iraq will fall and become something worse than Afghanistan under the Taliban. I strongly suspect Kerry would cut-and-run despite his contrary rhetoric. The objective is to get Iraq strong enough that it can withstand internal-and-external jihadis attempting to create havoc. Then our own people can leave and Iraq becomes the perfect bug zapper.

The current problem with Islamic fanatics took almost a century to get to its present state (it started with the collapse of the Ottoman Emprire). It's reasonable to assume that it will take about a century to go away. For the time being, Islamic fanaticism is a fact of life. The task is to control it in a way that minimizes damage to our own society.

Gary