The worst choice of all

Please explain to me why it is that the leading Democratic aspirants for president all fail to come to grips with the Iraq issue? All of them have picked the worst of all possible alternatives -- leaving a residual force there for .............. (ever?). As Mimikatz (at The Next Hurrah) says:

President Bush has said, "As long as I'm President", which is to say let the next guy deal with the problem; I can't figure it out. This is wholly irresponsible for a leader in time of war, as Josh Marshall says.

The Generals and some foreign policy hawks say ten years, fifty years, who knows? Look at Korea. This is supposed to be a serious position.

The top three Democratic candidates all talk of withdrawing most of the troops but leaving a "residual force" of 30,000 to 50,000, but none of them explain what the force would do beyond "training," something a much larger force has failed to do effectively, "force protection," which, as I understand it, simply means protecting the forces we have there, and thus is a somewhat circular objective, and "fighting al Qaeda," which is in Iraq because we are, and that is where they can fight us most easily. The assumption seems to be that in January, 2009 order will miraculously have been restored to the point where our forces will not be in the middle of a multi-party civil war as they are now, and we can concentrate on al Qaeda in Iraq. This is also considered a serious postion, though less so than endless war and/or occupation.

Yet a fourth position could be summed up as "sure we made mistakes in Iraq, but if we go into Iran we can get it right this time." This is the Cheney/neocon position and is considered crazy except by those who believe it, and they consider it the only really manly position.

Getting out in an orderly fashion, beginning this fall, is not considered to be a serious position, and yet it is the only one that truly makes sense.