It seems to me that we are in a no win situation in Iraq (at least that I can see). More troops in Iraq would mean more targets for the insurgency and bolster the insurgents claims that the US is here to colonize and subjugate Iraq meaning more insurgents.

Fewer troops and the country sprials into a Civil War. The only thing preventing an Iraqi civil war is that the insurgents, militia, etc are too busy shooting at our troops.

The current policies and troop levels don't seem to be accomplishing much either. In order for us to pull out we would have to rebuild at lest some of their infrastructure, difficult when the contractors are being attacked and have the Iraqi security forces gain enough strength and competence to take over. I would think getting Iraqis to join up would be difficult since they get blown up by car bombs or killed in drive bys on a weekly basis.

Even if we do get Iraq put together enough that a democracy can stand and prevent an Iraqi civil war, the likely hood of it being western-style sectarian democracy is small. More likely is that the people vote away their freedoms by putting Muslim clerics and their supporters into power resulting in another Iran.

To sum it up, we shouldn't have gone in, the administration let the "peace" get too far out of hand, and we're losing soldiers, money, and world standing. Even the Iraqi's don't like us. I imagine that most of them preferred the good old days when IED's weren't going off in the streets on a daily basis.