How about this...

[Ken Burch]

We make sure that whichever Dem we elect in '08 is committed to

1)Selling the massive, overpriced arrogant joke of an embassy in Baghdad and donating the proceeds from the sale to the Iraqi people;

2)Replacing it with a smaller, human-scale embassy whose very presence WON'T be seen as a raised middle finger by the Iraqi people;

3)Making it clear to the "government" there in Iraq that unless they actually commit to defending themselves within the first six months after the swearing in, we just freaking leave ANYWAY?

I'd like to get our troops out now, but this strikes me as a reasonable compromise. Of course, all the DLC'ers and Blue Dogs will denounce it because it intereferes with their dream of permanently lowering the party's foreign policy to "bear any burden, fight any foe"(and thus making it impossible for us to do anything progressive domestically because no money would be left after all the wars returning to the JFK '61 foreign policy would consign us to).

[truedelphi]

1. Perhaps we sell it on Ebay?? n/t

[emilyg]

2. LOL.

[Ken Burch]

4. My home state actually did that with a state ferryboat and the governor's private jet

(I don't think they got a high enough bid on the jet, but still...)

[Blashyrkh]

3. Who would buy it?

Who in their right mind would touch a billion dollar "city" in the centre of one of the most dangerous places on earth?

[Ken Burch]

5. Somebody could buy it and move it somewhere else.

Or it could be bought and then given to the Iraqi people who could raffle off the chance to blow the freaking thing to smithereens for charity.

The insistence on having an embassy that says "we're the 800lb elephant and we ain't EVER going away" was a huge mistake. It's like the thing was designed to PROVOKE continued armed resistance.

[Blashyrkh]

6. I agree, it should be left as a punching bag for the Iraqi people.