You're right Jami. There's actually a decent chance this piece was commissioned by our gov't as they got in trouble for doing a couple years ago already. Will the soldiers be heroes? Only as much as any soldiers in a tragically ill-conceived and immoral war of choice can be. Like the poor souls we sent to the Vietnam meat grinder. But of course this time they're volunteers, so perhaps they might lose some nobility from that. But then again, with our gov't subsidizing the flight of decent career manufacturing jobs abroad, sadly, those brave working class volunteers probably had precious few better professional alternatives. As for "cleaning up the mess" it doesn't seem like this gov't has any clue.

This is an unambiguous call for American troops to stay in Iraq and fight Al Qaeda (Al Qaeda is mentioned four times in the first two paragraphs - almost as it were an abracadabra incantation). Other pleas from Iraqis I've seen want us to go or want us to stay, but hope we will go as soon as possible. That likely does not bode well for this plea. Our government made this mess in our collective name. America has lost face in the world over the "mistakes" that were made. What our leaders do in our name to clean up the mess (no finger pointing) will decide how history is written. The leaders who join forces to make this happen will be the heros in the text books of the future.

I wish this seemed more like a real Iraqi perspective and less like some bulls--- written by Karl Rove. The author fails to explain how the "soldiers of freedom" (and more, more, ever more soldiers of freedom) will stop the violence they haven't been able to stop for four years. He has apparently not heard about American Republicans' "flypaper" strategy regarding al Qaeda. Iraqis should not be left to fend for themselves against al Qaeda and other Iraqis driven insane by this war. NATO needs to protect them. Every suicide bomb proves that American Republicans are utterly incapable of the job of protecting Iraqis. In fact, from over here, it looks like they're not even interested in doing so.