I’m not much of a traveller of any great stretch of the blogosphere, so i might be forgiven for ignorance, but the recent round of guest posters on Kevin Drum’s site have sort of opened my eyes.  The fixation on the lost war meme, and the total denial of any recent gains in the region is sort of staggering.  I don’t agree with everything you say here in your comments (definitely agree with the post, though), but the netroots are definitely losing any perspective they might have had.

Military spending as a % of GDP (and military casualties on an absolute scale) are lower than in the 1980s, and don’t begin to approach Vietnam, Korea, or WW II. We can occupy two or three more countries if we have to.

I don’t believe it’s reasonable to say that the recent economic activity in the US is a result of our military spending. 

OTOH, it’s been great for Iraq’s economy –  their GDP has more doubled since 2003.

If we had overwhelming numbers of troops, we could stabilize the country.

Which is why we trained half a million ISF who are now doing the job pretty well in basra, Mosul, and Sadr City.

That was bin Laden’s goal for the 9/11 attacks. To force the US to invade the Middle East and try to occupy Arab land. 

What a silly theory; we were already occupying Arab land in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar.  No, bin Laden’s goal was to get us to retreat, just as the Soviets did from Afghanistan, so he could take over.  He cited Somalia and Vietnam repeatedly.  He believed Bush would respond as Clinton had: a flurry of missiles but no real military response.  He believed we were too weak for anything more, and if bloodied would leave the Mideast entirely.

He underestimated America’s strength and Bush’s resolve.  And when he made some headway in Iraq, the locals turned on him there. It was a FAIL from start to finish.

He also grossly underestimated the size of our economy.  We’re spending less than 1% of our GDP occupying not one, but two countries.
I don’t believe it’s reasonable to say that the recent economic activity in the US is a result of our military spending.  That has some pretty clear roots in government regulatory policy and normal business cycles.

That was bin Laden’s goal for the 9/11 attacks. To force the US to invade the Middle East and try to occupy Arab land.  Bin Laden them believed that either the US would be forced to withdraw in humiliation or bankrupt itself to maintain the occupation. In either case US influence in world would be reduced. While Bin Laden appears to be on track to achieve that goal, he also badly miscalculated the Arab world reaction to the violent tactics AQ uses.

This is why Iraq was a dumb war. Salvaging what we can from the current mess involves making clear to Iraqis and the world that the US has no interest in a permanent military presence in Iraq. US military forces are going to leave as soon as that is possible. Iraqis need to find a way to govern their own country as quickly as possible and not to expect the US to be there to support them forever.

God, I hope so.  I had assumed he would moderate his stance once the primary was over.  His surrogates, at least, are not bending much so far though.

He knows perfectly well that we cannot responsibly leave Iraq. He just knows he can’t really say that openly, and has to keep appeasing the reactionary anti-progressive wing of his base.

That’s pretty much how I’ve got it figured, too, Dean. It’s also why I’m not as worried about the prospect of an Obama presidency as I might have been at one time. On OTB Radio last night (I’m a guest there pretty much every week) Alex Knapp characterized Obama’s stance as "ruthless pragmatism". I think that’s about right. At least I hope it is.

If the unpopularity gets strong enough, we start making noises about leaving. Sometimes even do some work toward that end. And then businessed that thrive on trade with our bases combine with political leaders who look to us for defense (sometimes grudgingly) to make it clear that they want us to stay.

Unpopularity can always be found, and trumpeted, if someone wants to use it for political advantage. I’m not saying it should have no weight, but unpopularity shouldn’t be the deciding factor, either.