[fintstone]

I would also agree with most of what you said...except the part about our military doing all the "heavy lifting." Lots more Iraqi soldiers and policemen are dying in the streets than our soldiers. They are certainly pulling their weight....in you define that in lives lost.
It would be nice to back away and let them fend for themselves....but we could never handle the political fallout. Heck, we kept/still have soldiers in Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Yugoslavia for many years while those countries rebuilt.