I don't blog too much about the Iraq War because, frankly, I have a lot of mixed feelings about how it was carried out (tactically), and how the debate has raged.  From the beginning I was willing to believe that it was necessary to go in, and I still hold to that.  But mistakes were made.  Some of them fairly major.  The lack of boots on the ground in the beginning caused many of the problems that we see today still.  The surge has potential, but came so late in the game, that it is still being treated like a temporary gambit.

The Democrats for their part are debating the war as if we were still trying to decide whether to start it or not.  They're stuck in 2003.  They act as if pulling out right now today will magically restore order, and bring peace to the region.  The Republicans are basically making the same arguments that were made in 2003 to justify the war in the first place, and playing right into the Democrat's hand.

The problem for both parties is that we're already in Iraq.  The decision was made, and we have to live with it.  Mistakes were made in how we carried out the occupation (the invasion went great).  In economic terms, this is called sunk cost.  We can't get that decision back.  The Democrats want to simply cut our losses and get out now, consequences to Iraq be damned.

The Republican's problem is that they can't debate the Iraq War like they need to.  The Republicans need to do more than simply say we're going to stay.  They need to be able to say what we'll do differently than we're doing today, while still not abandoning the Iraqi people.  However, in order to do that, they have to be willing to talk candidly about the mistakes of a sitting President, who is a member of their own party.

So who's got the balls to do it?