The Democrats on Iraq:
As violence declines in Baghdad, the leading Democratic presidential candidates are undertaking a new and challenging balancing act on Iraq: acknowledging that success, trying to shift the focus to the lack of political progress there
[...]
Advisers to Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama say that the candidates have watched security conditions improve after the troop escalation in Iraq and concluded that it would be folly not to acknowledge those gains.
I don't know how to feel about "acknowledging success." Fewer Americans have been killed, but that's only one small indicator in the overall Iraq picture... Iraq is, and will always be, a disaster. If we declared victory and withdrew today, there would still be an Islamic theocracy in Iraq. There would still be generations of anti-Americanism erupting from every city. The entire region has been destabilized due to this illegal invasion.
The Democrats should not be giving any quarter to the Bush Republicans on this -- no matter how begrudging the ackowledgement. The president's war is a failure on every level and he lied to the world. Acknowledging any small success in Iraq is like saying that the burglar who keeps robbing your house every night was nice enough to not pummel your kids this time.