I think John Kerry said it best when he argued both that the Iraq war was the wrong war, at the wrong place, and the wrong time, and also promised that he would have done it better, with even more allies joining us, for that wrong war. All criticisms are possible when one is unconstrained by consistency or accountability.

Sydney Morning Herald:

BAGHDAD: Iraqis danced in the streets when US troops withdrew from their cities a little more than a year ago. After the last American combat brigade trundled across the border into Kuwait on Thursday, reversing a journey that began more than seven years ago, there was no rejoicing.

Instead, a mood of deep apprehension tinged with bitterness is taking hold as Iraqis digest the reality that the American invaders who they once feared would stay forever are in fact going home - at a time when their country is in the throes of a political crisis that many think could become more violent.

''I'm not happy at all. I'm worried. They're leaving really early,'' said Wissam Sabah, a carpet seller in a Baghdad shopping districts. ''We don't have a government and we don't know what is going to happen next. Maybe we will go back to civil war.

Well, it's up to you guys now, and I wish you the best.

Did you think I was going to criticize Barack Obama for the pullout? Not particularly. We had to leave sometime, and US citizens voted for him and thus, for example, this policy. I do tend to think setting a hard-and-fast "withdrawal date" is stupid (your enemies just wait until then), but the future will tell on that count.

I only wish Bush or Obama had done the one thing I wanted, which would have stopped both criticisms: no ongoing US military involvement without a plebiscite authorizing our continued presence in the "occupied" nation, when possible. For a long time, the South Koreans hated the US for protecting them from Kim Jong Il. We saw Germans whining about US "Empire" (even after Soviet tanks had rolled across Eastern Europe), but then complaining when Bush decided to close a few military bases in Germany.

That's got to stop: with a vote, every "yea" voter would know, deep in their hearts, they were responsible for our continued presence and wanted it. For those who voted against it, their animus should then be rightly directed against the majority of their fellow citizens — not the army they invited to stay. And it would encourage good conduct of our troops among the host nation.

General Babakir Zebari, the chief of staff of the Iraqi armed forces, predicted that the shift in the US mission would have no serious impact, and said he was confident the Iraqi security forces could maintain stability.

A group of Iraqi soldiers standing guard beside their US-supplied Humvee on a main street in Baghdad did not seem so sure, however. One soldier, asked if security would deteriorate with the departure of the Americans, replied: ''Of course, because we have no government.'' Another made it clear he was not happy to see the Americans go. ''I wish they had taken me with them,'' he said. ''I don't want to be here.''

I feel for that last guy. I wish he could come here, too. Too bad our immigration policy is so screwed up: no problem crossing the border illegally, but if you want to come here legally, well, tough luck.