These people have a right to protest as they do. They're awful people, but we shouldn't change our way of life just because some crazy Calvinists abuse the freedoms we have in this country. Live with it.

So let me get this straight, The_Master_Warrior, you would rather we bombed Iraq into oblivion and then left without any regard for the future of the nation? That we destroyed the entire infrastructure and let the people to fend for themselves and live in anarchy? That we all but handed Iraq to Iran and gave this committed enemy of the United States a huge and easy propaganda win and increased dominance in the Persian Gulf?

You're stupid. Whatever the rational for the war, it would have been impossible to pull out after a mere three months in even the best of circumstances. Iraq's not Grenada.

And you'd rather the US become more involved in the war which actually is a quagmire? Relatively speaking, Iraq is a pretty developed country with a civic culture, a decently strong sense of national unity (we can obviously see that straight-up sectionalism is on the downturn there), has a middle class, and has the oil resources to make it economically viable. In the long run Iraq will be OK.

Afghanistan on the other hand is pretty much a wasteland full of petty tribal warlords and no sense of unity past the clan. Afghanistan has always been in the crapper and always will be in the crapper. You might be able to get a moderate government in Iraq (eventually you'll certainly get a stable on), but you'll never have either in Afghanistan. It was a mistake to try and do anything besides attack al Quedauauada and the Taliban there. We never ought to have tried nation building there, since there isn't a nation to build.

Alexander the Great tried to make Afghanistan a stable country. The Persians tried to make Afghanistan a stable country. The British tried to make Afghanistan a stable country. The Soviets tried to make Afghanistan a stable country. They all failed. We need to shift our focus or we'll fail just like them.