I've been out for the past couple of days, mostly reading the excellent Generation Kill, playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and looking for a job of sorts. Anyway, I paused GTA last night and watched the president's little speech on Iraq. I think I'll let Digby basically speak for me (note to journalists - you find Bush's pimping of 9/11 to justify everything he does offensive now?). But one thing that stood out for me was when Bush spoke of setting a timetable for leaving Iraq. He rejected it, of course, saying that it would demoralize our troops, make the Iraqis feel like we're giving up on them, and embolden the insurgency. I can't speak for the insurgents (and I think that we have to proceed as though any course of action we take will at least in the short to medium term rebound in the insurgency's favor), but it seems to me at least that our troops would be more demoralized from the prospect of cycling in and out of Iraq for the next five years than from getting a firm withdrawal date. But it also appears that Bush is very wrong about the effects of not setting some sort of withdrawal scheme with the broader Iraqi public, at least from a terrorist/asymmetric war theoretical standpoint. Bush said Iraqis "need to know that America will not leave before the job is done." But it is precisely the open-endedness of the job to be done that is probably making it possible for the insurgency to operate at its current levels. We are basically providing the fuel for the insurgency by our continuing presence. This all goes back to something that Matt Yglesias discussed a while back and I commented on: that perhaps the only way to 'win' in Iraq is for us to leave. It may force otherwise incorrigible Iraqi politicians to work together, and it may undercut the insurgency's support.

Something else bothered me: Bush said that the outcome in Iraq "will leave [al Qaeda] emboldened or defeated." I've already contended that Iraq is a strategic defeat for the United States vis-a-vis al Qaeda. So they've already been emboldened by our very presence in the heart of the Middle East. Thus the question isn't whether or not we 'win' in Iraq for the success of the war on al Qaeda, it's whether or not we fulfill our moral responsibility for setting up some sort of quasi-stable, quasi-democratic government that can control the country after we've blown it apart.

One final thing that bothers me about Bush's general speech patterns - he keeps referring to "September the 11th." That just irritates the shit out of me. Anyone venture a guess why he does that?