Regardless of who will be the first President that will abandon Iraq to the terrorists, the withdrawal of the US forces from Iraq will be a defeat of major proportions for the free world.
Every empire and every super power one day comes to an end. The US will also come to an end when the culture that built it will no longer have the stomach to maintain it as a super power.
What remains of the history of a nation are the good deeds. The bad deeds will be condemned; the good deeds will be praised and it is these good deeds that will be recalled about a nation, otherwise there would be no reason to recall anything about a nation that no longer has a country. There will be no schools to teach anything about such a nation, there will be no government and no public relations or the budget to maintain any knowledge about a nation that has not performed any good deeds. That is the way of things.
Five hundred years from now, when the world will be a different place, the only achievement that will be remembered about the US will be the liberation of Iraq. President George W. Bush and the US Military will be remembered as the heroes that they are. All the other wars will be forgotten; their history will be rewritten. None of what we see today in the news, read in the papers or the history books will remain. This is what I believe.