Kevin, I am looking at this problem from a distinctly American-Political Policy perspective. It is literally breaking our economy to spend 3 billion dollars a week on this war. Its unsustainable for us, and yes that might sound selfish, but those are the facts.

I don't buy into the nation building rhetoric, and sometimes you have to be an active observer outside the situation rather than inside of it to affect the problem in a positive way. The consequences of having over 100,000 US troops, not to mention over 100,000 mercenaries and contractors, literally above the law, in a supposedly sovereign nation...can't really be estimated in a tangibly numerical way.

The questions of do they want us there? Are we doing more harm than good? Is it worth it for us stay there multiple years during a slow burning civil war? all have dire answers in my opinion.

The idea of "staying in until the Iraqis have a functioning government and are completely stable" is a bit of a pipe dream to be realistic. You pretty much have to expect a civil war of some sort, perhaps an ethnic cleansing of slightly higher proportion than we see now between the sunni and shiites. The US has remained impotently neutral in this very real power struggle. The shiites were severely impacted as almost second class citizens under Sadaam's rule. There are two major ethnoreligious factions(the Kurds being a third, almost autonomous group geographically isolated for the most part) fighting each other for political power. After years of having a system in which the shiites, the majority, were oppressed by the minority, the sunnis, and then having the power distribution flipped on its head over overnight, we can't realistically think that bygones will be observed as bygones. Especially after we have seen a steady supply of death squads, city exoduses of certain religious groups, and internal inability to share governmental power for 5 years.

The faith put into the Iraqi people's ability to overcome their internal divisions was just that...based on blind hopes rather than pragmatically realistic solutions. The Bush Administration has failed on every level, with exception of the initial military invasion, to transition the country to a stable democracy able to share power and oil revenues equally between the various factions. America is unparalleled in its ability to wage symmetrical conventional warfare, but is simply not set up to have a single military force simultaneously address counter-insurgencies, humanitarian aid, police training, peace keeping efforts, and bureaucratic administration over an entire country. That is simply too many hats to make one group wear at a single time.

Enough is enough, we have to wash our hands of being the babysitter who is paying to watch unruly children unwilling to play nice.

Damn Dirty Ape, I have been for the creation of an independent Kurdish state since the beginning of the war. The Biden Plan of sharing oil revenues and partitioning was the most realistic plan, imo, that dealt with the problems in Iraq as they were, rather than what we wished them to be. As for the point of this post. It wasn't necessarily a post of how I think the minutiae of Iraq should play out, but to really shape the frame of how we talk about the situation. If we buy into the idea of still fighting a war in Iraq, then we still have to play into this "victory" mindset.

Let me just explain some of the subconscious and unconscious baggage that the war frame creates to illustrate this point.

"We can't leave until the job is done.

We have to fight them over there, so we don't fight them over here.

If you aren't with us, then you are against us. If you aren't for victory in Iraq, then you are for defeat, and people that wish America to lose a war are unpatriotic traitors.

Losing this war in Iraq, is a loss in the Global War on Terror(another maliciously false frame I am going to address later), and as such simply can't happen because if we lose here, then the terrorists win, and those who died on 9/11 have there memories and sacrifices tarnished as a result."

All of these powerful memes absolutely hinge on the fact that we are waging a WAR. As I have laid out my reasoning in the OP, we are not waging a war anymore....we won the fucking war. Thats right, victory was declared by our President. The war frame underlies all of these other frames and when you change that to an occupation, you fundamentally restructure the debate in powerful way, that imo, ultimately will lead to a quicker, more positive resolution. While at the same time, America as a country, doesn't have to feel like being a loser in a war. Regardless of what the most stringent anti-war activist says, I believe there is an unconscious, nationalist desire to be apart of the winning team even if you disagree with the game being played.

I am not saying there aren't a lot of people who consciously want to be a part of a winning team. I consciously would prefer to have the US win wars than lose them...thats just a fact. I think many people on the progressive/liberal side of this issue don't recognize that the winning/losing frame plays a role in how people perceive foreign policy. There is a lack of acknowledgement that "people don't want to be seen as part of a losing team" and this applies to nationalistic military endeavors. I am unclear as to whether you disagree with the unconscious part, or whether you disagree that there is a desire to win involved.

I think this might be a bit semantical in the sense that we both probably agree on the vast majority, but sometimes the subtle differences and nuances of a matter have profound effects.

I don't think everyone consciously understands why they still support "the war" as they see it. I think even a lot of conservative people see that our presence in the last few years has been inherently destructive to our army, has created an Iraq recession at home, and really might not be that helpful in rebuilding the country's infrastructure and democracy. But...they want to leave victoriously. Some people don't talk in terms of winning or losing, but rather goals that are measured, met, and which can subsequently allow our withdrawl. In this sense as well, failure to meet these goals, is seen as losing. If not overtly, then implied. I find it a very compelling idea, that not everyone is directly aware of, but has a gut-level response to. That is what I am saying. I hope that helps elucidate my position a bit.

I think we need to leave there. I just recently heard back from a guy who had been there on and off about 4 years - he's the former chief of police in my town and a Vietnam vet. He was working with Blackwater training the Iraqi police and later was imbedded with the Marines. He recently said that he's done there - that place can't be fixed.