U.S. President George W. Bush is no dummy. Over the objections of several savvy military advisers, he sent just enough troops into Iraq in 2003 so that a draft wouldn't have to be revived, as a draft surely would have sparked debilitating antiwar protests throughout the United States. Now it appears his troop "surge" of the past year is reducing violence just enough in the country to frustrate his critics' claims that the security situation in Iraq is hopeless and thus weaken their demand that he set a timetable for a complete troop pullout.
Bottom line: Bush, in his own way, has laid the ground for convincing even reluctant Americans this Christmas of the need for a long-term, probably even permanent, U.S. military presence in Iraq. This is exactly what he has wanted, for his own reasons, ever since he became president.
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