A friend e-mails:

Rich, Just saw this Bob Kagan response to your initial post (which was exactly right, in my view). Kagan is being disingenuous in citing Romney’s comment about turning Iraqi security over to Iraqi security forces, however. That quote came in the very specific context of the LONG-TERM US troop presence in Iraq. In fact, Romney was responding to a statement from a Bush Administration official in which Iraq was analogized to the US troop presence in South Korea. (See the Dobbs article that Kagan himself references. And here is the full-text of the AP story from June. Again, it is more than clear that Romney’s comments are about the long-term size of the US presence, and that they arose in response to statements of the Bush Admin making an analogy between Iraq and South Korea.) Obviously, NO ONE out there, including McCain, has argued that the surge needs to last for 50 years (even if some version of US presence might last that long). To argue that Romney’s comments, in that context, amount to a call for immediate withdrawal, along the lines what the Democrats have proposed, is just outrageous.