Withdrawl from Iraq

This is a great analysis, and the speech by Sen. McCain was absolutely brilliant.
We are faced with the prospect of defeat, even though our enemies have not achieved victory, but our internal dissension has created the conditions to prevent victory. I know that Congressman Murtha is once again claiming defeat, and because he is a retired Marine, the news gives him more credibility than someone who wants to perservere. Of course, his statement is nothing new.
I think that the real problem in this war is our American temperment. We are an impatient group who lack any sense of history or perspective. Bush said that it would be a long hard fought struggle, and he is once again right. But the general American perception is that the Iraqis are not responding in a way that we want them to. Our problem is that we have never had to live with the daily fear that comes from living in a police state. The Iraqi people had learned that anyone who stuck out drew attention, and usually in a way that they did not want to. Saddam used to execute his most effective generals during the Iran Iraq war because if they were successful, he perceived them as a threat. Probably rightly so.
We are trying to get people who learned to shun initiative and responsibility to now do what they had learned was deadly to try. Meanwhile, we sit here in the safety of our comfy worlds and Monday morning quarterback every jot and tittle.