I just read Josh Marshall's post about the rising fear that Bush might pull a Somalia on Iraq.

The concern is that the politicals at the White House will dictate a hasty and potentially disastrous withdrawal from Iraq --- one engineered not to create a long-term good outcome in the country, but to create a very specific short-term benefit, to eliminate or reduce the president's political vulnerability on the issue in the fall of 2004.

The neocons seem to share that anxiety in spades.

For whatever it's worth -- not much, since it's just little old me, and there's about a zero percent chance I'd vote for Bush anyway -- I figured I might as well go on the record saying this would be a terrible thing. And so should you, dear reader, whoever you are. Right? RIGHT?

UPDATE: Some commentary on this exact subject here on The Belgravia Dispatch blog. You may disagree, as I do, with the implicit claim that Bush was playing diplomatic nice guy all along. But there's some excellent commentary here about the danger of "Iraqification" alluded to in my comments section.