The "democratic" government of Iraq has almost no influence outside of the Green Zone, and that only with the help of American troops fighting and dying for it.

What would "collapse" look like? How is that fledgling "democracy" doing? How are they doing training their people? They had way over 360,000 trained, according to Bush, in early 2006. Are those folks on the front lines, standing up? Are most operations conducted by Iraqis with American advisors?

Are we buying that "democracy" enough time? Are we getting our $1,000,000,000,000 worth? Will the parents of the dead people regard this as worthwhile, not a waste like Vietnam?

Or are Conservatives still under the self-hypnotically induced delusion that things are going well, manageable, that something can be salvaged? That there is light at the end of the tunnel, that you CAN pound sand down a rathole and WIN?

By the way, a measure of how well things are going is in your statement - Al-Qaeda is "mostly beaten" in Anbar Province!

Gee whiz, how many of them were in Anbar Province before Cheney/Bush/Rumsfeld and Rice? Can we count them on the fingers of, say, one hand? What does "mostly beaten" when there were none before? Is the world a safer place now than it was?

Pa - (expletive deleted) - thetic!

Arf