Just as a follow-up to this, AFP reports:
Two Israeli civilians and seven Palestinians were killed on Wednesday in an explosion of violence on the Gaza Strip border after Palestinian commandos stormed into Israel.... The Israeli army said Palestinian fighters, under cover of mortar fire, breached the border near the Nahal Oz terminal that provides Gaza with its fuel supplies, and moved into Israel.
Israel withdrew unilaterally, ended the occupation of Gaza, and a terrorist group took over the territory. The result is cross-border violence. The same thing happened after the Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon. So tell me again how unilateral withdrawal from Iraq will lead to a different result? Granted AQI won't be able to run across the border to kill Americans, but there is no doubt that terrorists can strike from a great distance when they are allowed to plot and train unmolested. The left is quick to point out that there is no clear path to victory in Iraq, but one gets no sense that those agitating for withdrawal have grappled at all with the consequences of such a policy. If U.S. forces are to leave Iraq, how, precisely, do we avoid the spill over of instability and violence that characterized the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Lebanon. There can obviously be no guarantee, but if Obama's plan is to "get us out of Iraq as carefully as we were careless getting in," then there must be some attempt to answer this question.