Reply #8: Here's the latest....

[BooScout]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1924581,00.html

America has finally taken on the grim reality of Iraq

The US is radically rethinking its exit strategy, while Britain waits zombie-like for new instructions

Simon Jenkins
Wednesday October 18, 2006
The Guardian


The Baker report on an exit strategy from Iraq, leaked this week in the US, is as sensible as it is sensational. It rejects "staying the course" as no longer plausible and purports to seek alternatives to just "cutting and running". Stripped of political sweetening, it concludes that there is none. America must leave Iraq without preconditions and hope that its neighbours, hated Syria and Iran, can clear up the mess. This advice comes not from some anti-war coalition but from the Iraq study group under the former Republican secretary of state, James Baker, set up by Congress with President George Bush's endorsement. Students of Iraq studies should at this point sit down and steady their nerves. Kissinger is in Paris. The Vietnam moment is at hand.

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