The Optomist-in-Chief:

President Bush, rejecting what he called “pessimistic” assessments of his Middle East policy, pledged Tuesday to make necessary changes in Iraq but vowed never to pull out U.S. troops before completing the mission there.

Before flying to Latvia, Bush said in Estonia Tuesday morning that he would press Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for a plan to contain the country’s escalating sectarian violence, although he refused to characterize the situation in Iraq as a civil war. (emphasis mine)

If what’s going on in Iraq isn’t a civil war then that little skirmish that’s mentioned in american history books wasn’t a civil war.  The definition is when factions within a single nation-state fight each other, period.

Previewing the message he will carry with him Wednesday to Amman, Jordan, where he is scheduled to meet Maliki, Bush said he would ask the Iraqi leader, “What do we need to do to succeed? What is your strategy in dealing with the sectarian violence?”

The most likely strategy there, from what we hear about it, is actually quite simple:

1) U.S. Troops make an exit ASAP

2) One side or the other — more than likely the Shiites — wins, by whatever means they deem acceptable.

This is what’s going to happen, it’s only a matter of how soon we can get out of their way.  If they were ever interested in holding hands and singing kum-bay-ya they would’ve done so, anyone out there who for reason of mental defect cannot accept the moral arguement for withdrawal needs to at least understand the cold realist arguement: they’re going to do some increasingly nasty things to each other, would you rather they do it with us at home or with us standing around implicitly co-signing it?