Are we ready for round two?

With the latest news out of Iraq, it must feel like a sick version of "Groundhog Day" to most Americans.


(And you thought that we had seen the last of the Shiites and Sunnis.)


The neocons and right-wing chicken hawks in America are itching for a fight. "We should never have left when we did" they cry. "The job was not finished. We should have kept boots on the ground." Over at FOX Views they are trotting out Judith Miller again for crying out loud.


If this wasn't such a serious issue it would all be very funny.


These are the same people who got us into this never ending war in the first place. We toppled a dictator who was holding the country together and who (although he was no doubt evil) was just what the doctor ordered for this unstable and volatile country.


So what now? Do we listen to the people that lied about WMDs to get us there in the first place and cost us an enormous sacrifice in blood and treasure?
Or do we wash our hands of the region and let whatever generational beefs they have with each other work itself out?


Before we decide what to do, remember this: America hasn't recovered economically or emotionally from W's war, and the usual suspects are at it again.


"The senator [McCain] wasted no time snapping back, hammering Stein for his “confusion”:

I think you are confused because you didn’t know what happened with the surge where we basically had the country pacified. We had a stable government in Baghdad, and we had the conflict basically — for all intents and purposes — won. We still got troops in Bosnia, a residual force would have stabilized the country. Most military experts will tell you that. So I’m sorry about your confusion, but the facts on the ground were that al Qaeda had been defeated almost completely and with the residual American force and at that time, a strong Iraq. Now, [Iraqi PM Nouri] al-Maliki is very weak. Maliki got worse after we left. And again, I knew this was going to happen, because we didn’t leave that force behind. And so I’m sorry about your confusion, but anybody who was there will tell you we had the conflict won.

Had it won? The daily bombings and non-stop carnage from that country ever since W's war started until now says something different.


“I guess I shouldn’t myself confused, because it would be used against me,” Stein remarked. He then pressed once more: “What is the end date for our forces in Iraq? Is it open-ended? And if that’s the case, because we need to have a residual force there to prop up the Iraq government indefinitely, is that how you see it?”


In return, McCain cited residual American troops stationed in Germany, Japan, Korea, and Bosnia as having successfully stabilized regions American forces have previously occupied."


Senator there is no stabilizing this region. And if you of all people aren't aware of that, well then we are in some serious trouble.