September began with 140,000 American troops in Iraq -- 13,000 more
than in late July.
Almost 30 months have passed since Time magazine’s mid-April 2004
cover story, “No Easy Options,” reported that “foreign policy luminaries
from both parties say a precipitous U.S. withdrawal would cripple
American credibility, doom reform in the Arab world and turn Iraq into a
playground for terrorists and the armies of neighboring states like Iran
and Syria.”
Back then, according to the USA’s largest-circulation newsmagazine,
“the most” that the president could hope for was that “some kind of
elected Iraqi government will eventually emerge from the wreckage, at
which point the U.S. could conceivably reduce the number of its troops
significantly. But getting there requires a commitment of at least
several more months of American blood and treasure.”
As I noted in my book War Made Easy, which came off the press nearly
18 months ago, “Hedge words were plentiful: ‘the most’ that could be
hoped for was that ‘some kind’ of elected Iraqi government would
‘eventually emerge,’ at which time the United States ‘could conceivably’
