The Mad, The Scared, And The Stubborn

Tell me if you've heard this one lately, "We can't pull out of Iraq now. Violence will spiral out of control, and it'll be a total bloodbath!"
Uh, yeah. That's the way wars end. Whether it's now or later, it's gonna be a mess. And if you want to start a war, you damn well better be prepared for the end.
Even World War II, the "good" war that many are practically nostalgic for, ended with two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan - 140,000 dead civilians in Hiroshima and, three days later, another 74,000 in Nagasaki. That's how wars end.
Anybody old enough to remember Vietnam (not that long ago!) knows what's coming in Iraq. It'll be the same deal - terrible violence and death followed by retribution against any perceived enemies. I pray the US military or CIA have a way to evacuate Iraqis who have helped them, but I have a bad feeling that will be botched also. Imagine being an Iraqi interpreter for American soldiers, and you wake up one morning, and they're gone? FUBAR. Maybe there will be a version of Pol Pot in the region. It's possible.
Unfortunately, the rotted aftermath will be dropped into the lap of the next president, and people will try to blame that administration. Don't be fooled. This war is the legacy of one man.
It took a long time to finally pull American troops out of Vietnam. Even as they returned home, polls showed that many Americans still believed it was a mistake because Communism would spread further around the globe. Sound familiar? It wasn't until polls conducted in the early 1990's that 90% of Americans were able to admit that Vietnam was a mistake. That's a long time. Bush's flawed war in Iraq has failed, and, yes, it will end badly. It shouldn't take us twenty years to get our heads around it.