Romney's Iraq dance

Mitt is the only one of the two GOPers whom it seems has a chance of winning the nomination, is slowly trying to back away from their support of the Iraq war. But let's put the emphasis on slowly:

In April, Romney said Bush's plan to send about 30,000 additional troops to Iraq had a "real chance" of succeeding. On July 26, he was more equivocal, saying in an interview: "I don't give that a high probability, I give it a reasonable probability."
[...]
Romney, who isn't noted for jabs at Bush, is simply preparing for a call for a post-surge strategy, said Tom Rath, a senior adviser.
"That cannot be viewed as a sign of disloyalty or disrespect, but rather an inevitability in the political process," he said.
The issue, Rath said, "is how far any candidate should go in separating from the president."

Yes, how far should a candidate for the job of commander-in-chief go to show he should hold that position when discussing one of, if not THE, biggest foreign policy mistake in U.S. history? If you agree with 62% of Americans, the answer would be get out of Iraq...and the details of how and when would be between now and by next spring. In other words, you would either be a Democratic candidate, or Ron Paul.

But if you a Republican trying to win the Republican nomination for president, the answer is really much more complex because reality and sanity doesn't exist for the issue of Iraq for the GOP base.

Now Romney is [shocking I know] trying to have it both ways, first by giving a extremely weak critique of the escalation of the war, and then by saying they still support the war itself.

"There is no guarantee that the new strategy pursued by General Petraeus will ultimately succeed," Romney wrote in an Aug. 1 letter to supporters, adding that the stakes are too high to undermine the troops charged with the mission before it has an opportunity to succeed.

No guarantee? I will bet Romney all of his millions that Gen. Petraeus will claim that "success" is at hand or "progress" is being made, despite the fact that there is absolutely nothing resembling a functioning government at any level. I can also guarantee that it will remain a dog-eat-dog world out there for Kurds, Shi'a and Sunnis in Iraq.

But don't tell that to those serious men in Washington and on the GOP campaign trail. We wouldn't want to hurt their feelings and make them look bad. Poor Mitt is already upset, look: