Victory in Iraq: Something to be Thankful For

Folks, our troops are coming home, and not with their tails between their legs as the lefties wanted, but with heads held high:

While Americans sat down for Thanksgiving dinner deciding what they were thankful for, the Iraqi parliament Thursday passed an agreement with the U.S. that set a date certain for American withdrawal, as war critics wanted. But it was based on conditions on the ground, as the Bush administration insisted.

The conditions on the ground are that the jihadists are a spent force that lost the war as well as the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. Province after province has been returned to Iraqi control, and the young Iraqi nation appears both willing and able to defend itself.

Under the terms of the agreement, U.S. forces will withdraw from Iraqi towns and cities by June 30, 2009, and the entire country by Jan. 1, 2012. The deal could still be rejected by the Iraqi people in a referendum scheduled for July 30, a key Sunni demand to get their agreement, but by then U.S. troops will no longer be a visible presence in urban areas.

That public referendum is very significant… if they don’t trust their government to keep them safe, the Iraqi people can ask us to stay. Of course, that would drive the lefties into an absolute tizzy, because we’ll have been asked by the Iraqi people to stay.

But there really shouldn’t be any reason for the Iraqis to feel unsafe, the Iraqi government has done a marvelous job of taking over the reins of power from Saddam and his Ba’athists.

The pact comes after a report on Iraq’s progress that retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, now an adjunct professor of International Affairs at the United States Military Academy at West Point, compiled for his colleagues.

The report concludes: “The United States is now clearly in the end game in Iraq to successfully achieve what should be our principle objectives: the withdrawal of the majority of U.S. ground combat forces . . . in the coming 36 months; leaving behind an operative civil state and effective Iraqi security forces; an Iraqi state which is not in open civil war among the Shia, the Sunnis, and the Kurds; and an Iraqi nation which is not at war with its six neighboring states.”

A job well done by all our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. Welcome home, troops. You did good, no matter what Reid, Pelosi, Kerry, Murtha, et al want to claim.