The president said he'd be comfortable with an even longer pause. Right. That way, he can kick the can down the road to Jan. 20, 2009, and hand his war over.

Bush followed with more talk about the fruits of victory in Iraq and the need to hang in there. He said Iraq was a difficult situation, but the war wouldn't be endless.

In other words, his predictable prediction was for more of the same until he rides off into the sunset.'

To which Galloway concludes: ' How much more American and Iraqi blood must be spilled so Bush can boast that Iraq wasn't lost on his watch, that he never cut and ran and that - never mind - it wasn't Al-Qaida or Iran that defeated us in Iraq, it was the Democrats?'

How many indeed?

And this makes an unquestionably accurate point: that nothing will change until Bush leaves the White House. The Democrats have demonstrated their complete spinelessness in the face of the Republican onslaught.

Moreover, you can forget about the 'war for democracy too'.

As was recently reported: 'For President Bush, creating a peaceful democracy remains the overarching U.S. goal in Iraq. Last week, he again described his vision for a "stable democracy" that can "promote our common interests in the Middle East."

But in two days of exhaustive testimony before the House and Senate, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said conspicuously little about democracy in that nation.

That's because, without saying so publicly, U.S. war planners have moved further from those idealistic goals.

They are now pursuing a strategy aimed at a more modest outcome, one that emphasizes keeping the peace over democratic reforms.

In fact, as military officials acknowledge, some of the newer tactics may make democracy more unlikely than ever.

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus has always championed Bush's Iraq strategy and has never clashed publicly with the president. But the last week made clear the growing divergence between political rhetoric and the reality of the war.

When it comes to defining victory, Petraeus told lawmakers last week, he and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker consider themselves minimalists.

"We're not after the Holy Grail on Iraq," Petraeus said. "We're not after Jeffersonian democracy."

Meeting with reporters two days later, Petraeus said that it was important to foster democratic practices but that U.S. aspirations had been "tempered by experience".'

Whatever that means.

'Besides the difficulty of trying to strengthen democratic institutions, reforms could actually threaten security gains.

Stephen D. Biddle, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised the U.S. command in Iraq, said there could be a "real tension" between the competing goals of forging cease-fires with local militants and supporting the democratically elected central government.

Biddle reasoned that an emphasis on democracy could lead the U.S. to support Maliki in his attempts to dismantle the militias of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr.

But such a move by the central government, Biddle said, would unravel local cease-fire agreements with other militia groups that have tamped down violence.

"If that's what democracy requires," Biddle said, "we might be better off settling for stability with less democracy, rather than risking chaos in pursuit of the ideal in Iraq."'

Apart from the usual mendacious use of the word 'we' (doesn't include me....) this is probably quite accurate. The US will, indeed, pursue stability over democracy. (The rest of the article, which I will not quote from, goes on to argue that this is the Iraqi's fault. I mean, who else's could it be?).

And, ,finally:

'Bush lumped Tehran and Al-Qaeda together as "two of the greatest threats to America in this new century" and left little doubt that he was threatening Iran with military action if it threatens US interests in Iraq.'