Pessimism on Iraq

Charles Peña points out how small and how insecure the troop reductions Rumsfeld is touting really are.

The real problem here is that the U.S. still has no real specific goals to meet in Iraq, so it can't really do anything but reduce troop levels a little and see if things don't fall apart, and if they don't, reduce troop levels further.

In the end, as Mr. Peña intimates, the talk about troop reduction is driven more by a desire to placate the American people with something that suggests we are winning than by the facts on the ground.

That is all.