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At the end of a long, thoughtful post on the ongoing debate over withdrawal from Iraq, Sam Rosenfeld adds this gem:

The essence of a quagmire is, of course, the absence of any good options. Withdrawal advocates argue that it's the least bad option. Kaplan, the war supporter, now attacks those advocates for failing to appreciate sufficiently that the Iraq War is, in fact, a quagmire and that their preferred bad option is, in fact, bad.

This is what so many on the "stay the course" side of the argument seem not understand. Although there are in fact some on the left who advocate withdrawl because they oppose all war, most - like myself - have called for withdrawl because we see it as the least bad option realistically available to us.

Yes, of course, I would prefer a world in which the Iraq adventure worked out in our best interest. But that world is a utopian fantasy. It simply does not exist. And so the question we are faced with today is not "what is the best possible option," but "what is the best possible option from which we can realistically choose."

It would be one thing if the current policy was working. But it is not. And there are no "good" options left from which we can choose. That is the reality that opponenets of withdrawal simply refuse to either consider or accept.