Finally Leaving?

Obama announced today that all combat troops are going to be out of Iraq by the end of the month (ie: on schedule).

This really shouldn't be a big deal, but I'm fairly excited about it.

Finally, an explicit acknowledgment that nothing good is going to come out of staying. Of course, there's a lot of support troops still there for quite a while. And who knows how long sizable numbers of contractors (excuse me, "security guards") will stay.

As I said, it shouldn't be a big deal. But it is.

Of course, the downside potential problem is that if the pull-out doesn't continue on schedule, then we lose even more credibility with those in the middle east who are worried that we're never going anywhere. And that we went in just for oil. And that we're going to keep it.

That would be the melting pot of potential terrorist recruits. We really don't want to give them reason to remove the "potential" from the description of themselves.

I wonder how many politicians recognize (and care about; I'm sure at least some of them don't care) that last problem. I'd bet that it's a very small number (microscopic within the GOP, I'm sure). I'm also sure that Lieberman would not be among those seeing it.