Fantastic Filibuster! Get out of Iraq!

Reid and the Democratic Crew in the Senate look like they're finally getting serious about forcing legislation for a withdrawal from Iraq. It's about time.

Anonymous Liberal has more great ideas for finally putting the smack down on the obstructionist Republicans.

There is no excuse at this point for any member of the Senate or Congress to continue supporting the Iraqi occupation, regardless of how much they might have supported it once upon a time. The entire Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously opposed the trickle - er, "surge" - in December. Remember that idea about "listening to our generals"? Bush's idea of "listening to our generals" is shopping around til he finds a general who tells him what he already thinks, and getting rid of any along the way who are too explicit with their disagreements - although I suppose even Bush could not get away with too much reaction against his entire Joint Chiefs at once. And now, in case we didn't know before, and even through the self-serving pablum for which the National Intelligence Estimates (NIE) have become known under Bush & Co., the new NIE makes quite clear that the U.S. occupation of Iraq is actively serving to empower the terrorists and increase the danger to America.

Fred Kaplan has a terrific discussion of this here.

There is simply no rational, honest argument anyone can give at this point for why we are not pulling out of Iraq right now. The administration and its enablers are still offering arguments, but they are dishonest and/or irrational, and based on just trying to toll the clock til Bush leaves office, as a way to possibly make less obvious, among a few dim yokels, the blame he deserves for the catastrophe he created there.

As for how to recover a rational foreign and counterterrorism policy, a lot of intelligent criticism has sprung up lately in response to Anne Applebaum's recent, poorly researched worries about this... while Barack Obama has an interesting take, centered on the idea of recovering the inherent appeal of a moral high ground that can live up to America's finer foreign policy efforts of the past.