Analyze the current situation if Bush had never gone into Iraq, but our troops were tied up only in Afghanistan.

Suggestions: discuss the situation in western Pakistan, the Iranian nuclear program, what Saddam would be doing now in response, the status of the non-Sunnis in Iraq, and the situation in Syria.

The false dichotomy in these discussions is the unspoken assumption that everything would be just ducky and that all the terrorists would be asleep if we were only taking al Qaeda on in Afghanistan.

By bleeding our military capactiy dry in Iraq, we have already determined that we will not be able to successfully confront either Iran nor North Korea and thwart their nuclear ambitions. We have nothing in the cupboard to back up military threat. Further, we have exhausted the will of the american people for prolonged military conflict.

I love this. I hear it over and over again.

Rough translation: "Our difficult and bloody ground war in Iraq is keeping us from pouring hundreds of thousands of troops into Iran and North Korea, which no doubt would be a cakewalk when compared to the ghastly toll of two military deaths a day in Iraq."

Name ANY of those other battlefields that would NOT "exhaust the will of the American people for prolonged military conflict." Particularly when a large segment of its own population has dedicated itself to destroying any such will that might still exist.

And it's not as if a lot of anti-Iraq-war liberals posting here would have the slightest support for any such major military actions in other nations. Pretending otherwise is dishonest.