Meaningless Dates
McCain also pitched the part line argument that setting a date for withdrawal would encourage the militias in Iraq to lay low and wait for the date before erupting even more violence. I wonder sometimes how many civilian deaths per day it will take for people to realize that we have no such influence in the region. If the militias wanted us to leave wouldn’t they just pause the violence long enough for Bush to save face and withdraw? Before you ask, yes, they are that smart. The truth is that they do not want us to leave. The presence of US Armed Forces are a much better recruitment tool for the insurgents in Iraq than they have been here at home. Maybe if we set a date the insurgents will fear that they will not longer be able to blame us for their suffering and 26 million Iraqis will kick them out. I wouldn’t count on it though - date or not, the vacuum left in Iraq when we removed Saddam will take years if not decades of violence to fill and will require much more than 100,000 troops to win.