NYeT! Plug Your Ears! NYeT!

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack of the center-left Brookings Institution take to the pages of the solidly-left New York Times with an unusual mission. The pair have recently returned from Iraq to study the military effort by the US, and they have some bad news for the Gray Lady's readers. Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with. In fact, O'Hanlon and Pollack recommend that Congress stop talking about withdrawal. They conclude with a near-heresy: they recommend sustaining the current effort until 2008.