The "price" for negotiating our way out of Iraq, and with it the entire Middle East, will be as steep as one can imagine. Nobody in the Middle East need fear us after we cut and run. We will have no clout in any negotiation at any time in the future. Iran will produce the bomb with impunity, they will share it with every two bit despot in the area (and you can bet one or two will use it against the West). Even though you can count me as one of the people who are pissed as hell about the the absence of planning for the post war, I am also pissed at the entire Administration for having no plan after our massive professional army stomped an Iraqui military we all knew was a joke. All of us know what was obvious after the looting started and we had no MP battalions in the rear ready to police; this was a project that was never thought through. We beat an army of 100,000 that just blended into the population with no plan on how to deal with what would come next; we had no idea of the frail infrastructure that would have to be fixed, a job that has taken almost three years; and I could go on forever. All that doesn't mean we should cut and run, but Bush remaining totally inarticulate to the sorry end, can't explain it; BTW it's not America that is weak, it's Bush. We elected the sorry inarticulate son of a bitch and we who voted for him (me included) bear some responsibility, never the less we must see if we can persevere out there or we are going to be nuked. And then what? Does our sorry Left have a plan for that?

Oh yeah, negotiate. That'll work.