I just finished reading reading a 25 page report titled The Tenuous Case for Strategic Patience in Iraq written by Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. It is a comprehensive, level-headed and politics-free look at what the situation on the ground in Iraq looks like right now. I highly recommend taking the time to read it. And even though Cordesman, as the title implies, is arguing for our continued, long-term presence in Iraq, he is absolutely not one of dubya's empty-headed, flag-waving neocon supporters. Check out these little snippets:

Like it or not, the US is rightly seen as having gone to war for the wrong reasons, as having consistently mismanaged the “peace” that followed and been largely responsible for the suffering of some 27 million Iraqis. Strategically, ideologically, and morally, the US cannot avoid being linked to the future of Iraq, regardless of whether it maintains a military presence.

It is important to note in this regard that while Americans are still concerned with finding ways to define “victory” in Iraq, virtually the entire world already perceives the US as having decisively lost.

None of these factors are reasons for making open-ended commitments to remaining in Iraq or for "staying the course." There is no point in pursuing failed strategies or failed policies. Iraq is a gamble, and one where even the best-managed future US policies may still fail. It is a grim reality that the mistakes and blunders that have dominated US policy in Iraq throughout the US intervention have interacted with Iraqi failures to make any continued US effort one filled with serious risks.

Nope, he's definitely not a loyal bushie. His arguments for more time are based on his confidence in the people we have in charge in Iraq now (namely Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus) and the limited - but genuine - progress they have achieved in recent months.

...professionalism has replaced the vacuous ideological reliance on hope that crippled much of the initial US effort.

As for confidence in the people in charge in Washington? Not so much:

The domestic US security structure has so far failed to present meaningful options, and seems incapable to doing so. The US team in Iraq, however, is much more experienced, and there is a new degree of realism and competence that clearly can never come from within a failed Bush Administration.

In the end though, Cordesman only gives us a 50/50 chance of success, a coin toss. And most of our chance lies in the hands of the Iraqi government:

Any major Iraqi failure to move forward over the next six months, to come to grips with the realities described above, and to solidly co-opt the Sunni tribes and put a real end to JAM and other Shi'ite sectarian cleansing will make strategic patience of limited value or pointless.

And by Cordesman's thinking, no matter how the coin lands, we're still in Iraq for many years to come.