Post-election calm?

Today in Iraq, at least 130 Iraqis and 5 American troops were killed. This, on top of the 50-plus killed yesterday suggests that Bush's claims that Iraq would calm down after the elections were just another stage in his "hope for the best" strategy for getting out of Iraq. With the U.S. troops occupying Iraq and no guarantees that the U.S. is seeking permanent bases in Iraq (see Gary Hart's op-ed in the Financial Times yesterday), the violence will not abate. The U.S. is just getting more and more caught up within an Iraqi civil war, partly caused by faulty planning on the part of the political leaders (of the U.S.) lack of post-war planning. Instead of claiming that we are just about to "turn the corner", Bush should be planning for ways to get the U.S. military out of the way of an insurgency and civil war. Otherwise, we will evolve into a permanent occupying power of a country that wants us out and our soldiers will continue to die. Comparisons of Iraq and Vietnam are useful, but not as much as comparisons with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, which degenerated into a money and manpower drain on the Soviet Union and hastened its collapse.