No solution.

Bush's latest pronouncement of a troop "drawdown" is nothing more than a reversal of the surge he ordered last winter, one which merely diverted the violence in Baghdad to other parts of the country. Baghdad may have become safer, but the rest of the country more dangerous, resulting in zero net impact overall. The "drawdown" will merely restore our troops to their pre-surge level of about 130,000, which was already too high to begin with, and those troops will remain, in the crossfire of a civil war, with no clear objective in place. And now Bush is invoking Korea, where we've had to maintain a substantial military presence for fifty years, one which did little to deter North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Bush also insisted that future troop drawdowns are possible if sufficient political and security progress is made, using the phrase "return on success." That sounds nice, until one realizes the implied inverse of the idea - if there's no progress, our military occupation will continue in full force. And considering what little genuine progress has been made in bringing peace and democracy in Iraq, it appears that an occupation lasting decades is very likely.

I couldn't help noting Bush's repeated references to the "success" of our counter-insurgency efforts in Anbar Province. That "success" was repeatedly cited as somehow being proof that his strategy is working. Yet he mentioned only in passing that just yesterday, Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, a Sunni Arab sheik who was a leading U.S. ally in the fight against Al Qaeda in Iraq was killed, along with his two bodyguards, by a roadside bomb. So Anbar Province is a big success story, proof that progress is being made in Iraq - and yet even one of the province's leading political figures isn't safe, not even under armed guard.

There's no progress being made, nor is there likely to be any time soon. Time to get out, now.