“There are only two reasonably likely outcomes in Iraq: An orderly withdrawal on an announced timetable, or a ‘last helicopter out of Saigon as the embassy is overrun’ scenario. Barr has now publicly positioned himself — and, if he receives its presidential nomination, the Libertarian Party — in support of the latter. As for the third possible outcome, ‘victory’ in Iraq, well, I don’t think that is possible … but just to accommodate any hawkish readers, if it is, it won’t be achieved by Barr’s proposal to ‘draw down dramatically the US troop presence in Iraq.’ It would require a much larger, and much longer, ’surge.’So Barr’s not appealing to the ‘victory’ crowd either. … Whom, exactly, does a weak-sister version of McCain’s ‘100 years in Iraq’ nonsense make Barr look good to?” (05/12/08)