Mr. Howard Blasts Obama on Iraq

You gotta love this guy:

In a television interview in Australia, Mr. Howard said the senator’s redeployment plan would simply inspire insurgent violence in Iraq.

“If I were running Al Qaeda in Iraq,” Mr. Howard said, “I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a victory not only for Obama but also for the Democrats.”

In a news conference here, Mr. Obama dismissed the remarks, saying it was “flattering that one of George Bush’s allies on the other side of the world started attacking me the day after I announced.”

Or, it could be that the silliness of your plan is so pronounced that it is visible from across the ocean. That's a less flattering way to look at it.

John, on the consequences:

The Soviet pullout of Afghanistan taught guys like Bin Laden that low-level warfare can topple superpowers. That withdrawal got us a decade plus of escalating terrorism, culminating in 9/11. Now some American lawmakers want to repeat that mistake, seemingly without any thought of the consequences. That frustrates guys like John Howard, and it frustrates guys like me.