Hedging Their Bets

Hillary and the NY Times are hedging their bets. What if the surge succeeds? The front page has a picture of a little boy, covering his ears, seeking protection with a US soldier after he hears gunshots. And Hillary, in an interview, offers this:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton foresees a “remaining military as well as political mission” in Iraq, and says that if elected president, she would keep a reduced military force there to fight Al Qaeda, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds and possibly support the Iraqi military.

In a half-hour interview on Tuesday in her Senate office, Mrs. Clinton said the scaled-down American military force that she would maintain would stay off the streets in Baghdad and would no longer try to protect Iraqis from sectarian violence — even if it descended into ethnic cleansing.

How tough is that. Ah yes, the NY Times describes it in the next paragraph as a more "nuanced position".

Video with General Petraeus yesterday. More in the Financial Times, already there's been a huge drop in death squad activity. They are still on the hunt for car bomb makers, assembled in the outskirts of Baghdad. But deaths of US soldiers are down dramatically.

The mastermind behind 9/11, KSM confesses to numerous crimes, we relive the horror, but it feels like we caught him again.

So have a cup of coffee, and give a little thanks.