The Beginning of the End, or The End of the Beginning?

The war in Iraq is not over.  But the withdrawal of American combat forces from the country, as President Barack Obama announced Tuesday night in an address from the White House, is a major step forward.

Now there will be 50,000 "support troops" to teach Iraqis how to defend their own country.  By the end of 2011, they should be gone.

It's been seven years since the George W. Bush administration abandoned one war to start another.  They told us that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the attacks on 9/11/01, and that he had weapons of mass destruction stashed away someplace.  And we believed it.  Only after Hussein was captured and executed did we learn that neither was true, and that it was about settling a grudge held over from the last war.

This war evolved from 'shock and awe' and 'mission accomplished' to roadside bombs and insurgents.  There's no real government in Iraq, with factions battling for control months after elections were held.  It's still dangerous enough that Vice President Joe Biden had to sneak into the country to visit the remaining American troops.

To date, more than 4400 American soldiers have died in the war, and more than 35,000 have been wounded.

With military operations shifting to the once-neglected (and still dubious) war in Afghanistan, Iraq has become nothing more than a blip on the American consciousness.  We now worry about the economy, where a new Islamic cultural center in New York should be located, and whether or not President Obama is really a Muslim.

In his address, the President praised the soldiers for their performance and sacrifice the last several years under difficult conditions.  As commander-in-chief, he has to say that.  In reality, the soldiers have been deadly pawns in every American conflict since World War II that were not only unpopular, but also had very little to do with national security.

Yes, it is time to "turn the page" (as the President put it) on a misbegotten war.  Eventually, we should be doing the same for Afghanistan.