To finish the point: "If they are able to meet these benchmarks, the Democrats (and Bush, for that matter) could declare victory. If they don't meet these benchmarks, then the Democrats could claim that we helped the Iraqis enough that they should have been able to meet these guidelines. This would warrant the claim that the Iraqis lack the will to engage in useful nation building and thus the failure is theirs not ours.Bush cannot accept this proposal because Bush knows that the Democrats will claim forever that he and the party that supported him got us into an unwinnable war."

Interesting points made re: US not being accustomed to defeat; too long to clip, go to the source
"

Interesting piece.

Excellent clip ginge!