I believe it was in June when Democratic leaders in Congress sent Bush a letter saying that the "surge" had failed to produce the intended results. the intent of the "surge" was to curb the violence to give the Iraqi people a real opportunity to establish a strong central government. The "surge" was a needed step in a process. The US needed to show the Iraqi people and other government and people in the region a strong commitment to help fix a problem we contributed to creating.
If we had followed the desires of Democratic leaders, I truly believe the conditions in Iraq would be worse today with the entire region closer to being in total chaos. Given, the circumstances at the time, cutting and running would have been the worst thing to do. Bush deserves credit for listening to his military leaders and his desire to bring stability to Iraq rather than cutting and running.
It is true that the Iraqi government is still struggling and the majority of the Iraqi people support a timetable for US withdrawal. However, given the "surge", when we do leave we will leave a country better prepared than if we followed the "cut and run" strategy.
I presented this originally as a rhetorical question because I did not believe those who strongly dislike Bush could possibly give him credit for anything positive developing in Iraq.
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"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."
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