The Yankees are going home. Now what was that about democracy?

US neocon publications (The WSJ, Commentary, Weekly Standard etc.) are lamenting the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. With newly found prescience, the hacks predict much strife in the country, complete with massacres, deportations and foreign invasions neatly dovetailing with a civil war from hell. A prolonged US military presence would allegedly prevent such outrages, they claim. How prolonged? Well, who's counting among friends? A generation or two, maybe a century or two -- it's the thought that matters. Of course, American presence there since 2003 was coextensive with the best part of a million Iraqis (not to mention 4,500 Americans) dying violent deaths, a coincidence that hints at a causal relationship. But the neocons are adamant: no sacrifice is too big for Democracy. Those poor Iraqis had to die for the bright future of their country becoming like Norway.