The Cut-and-Run Transition

"And yet, though we turned over little real power
to our Iraqis, in another sense much has changed.
After all, for the last half-year the "transition"
has been the administration's trump card.
Now, it's been played, hurriedly and in the dark.
What are they going to do, when things get worse?
What will happen then?

Bremer, of course, did what he could do.
He took the first flight out to cooking school.
George Bush can travel anywhere in splendid isolation,
and for him, there's always Crawford, Texas.
But for our troops, 138,000 of them, in desperate danger,
no such handy options exist.
And what in the world are they supposed to do,
while our leaders, who cut and ran in their moment of truth,
continue to eye November
and claim that no one will ever drive us from Iraq?"