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Sen. Olympia Snowe on Wednesday became the second Republican to embrace a bill ordering troops out of Iraq as President Bush's national security adviser tried to stop defections from the White House war policy.

Snowe, R-Maine, joined Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., in co-sponsoring a bill that would require troops to start leaving in 120 days. The bill also would end combat by April 30, 2008.

Snowe's endorsement is a shift for the senator, who in recent months opposed a similar measure. Snowe had said earlier that she'd been considering signing on to the measure because the situation in Iraq was growing worse.

"Frankly, given the fact that the Iraqi government isn't prepared to change its own political direction, we should be prepared to change course with resepect to our strategy," Snowe told reporters Tuesday.

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071107A.shtml

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For the sake of the ability of US petroleum companies to operate in the Middle East, and to sustain the US strategic position in the region, the war in Iraq has to be wound up. In Afghanistan similarly, the US establishment has concluded that the war is not worth the risk of a showdown with Pakistan, which would be needed to defeat the Taliban. The Pakistani regime of Pervez Musharraf is already imperiled for domestic reasons and Washington cares much more about Pakistan than it does about Afghanistan.

The US is likely to wind down its operations in Iraq following a political deal with Iraqi and non-Iraqi players that will allow the Americans to save face and to pull out most of their troops. That does not mean that armed struggle over the future shape of Iraq will end, just that the American military occupation will conclude, perhaps with US military bases left behind in the country, and certainly in neighbouring Kuwait.

In Afghanistan, the likeliest outcome is a deal between the Karzai regime, regional warlords, and elements of the Taliban to create a more broadly based government. With this, the American, NATO and Canadian missions in Afghanistan will be transformed and most western troops will go home. In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, the end of the Western missions will not terminate armed struggle over the future shape of the country.

For the sake of Western pride, the settlements in both wars can be expected to include a few undertakings about human rights, the rights of women in particular, commitments almost certainly not worth the paper they will be written on.

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