This Is How Empires End

by Patrick J. Buchanan

".....At a cost of $600 million, with walls able to withstand mortar and rocket fire, and space to accommodate 1,000 Americans, this mammoth embassy, largest on earth, will squat on the banks of the Tigris inside the Green Zone.

But, a decade hence, will the U.S. ambassador be occupying this imperial compound? Or will it be like the ruins of Acre?

What raises the question is a sense the United States, this time, is truly about to write off Iraq as a lost cause.......

It is a near certainty the U.S.-backed government will fall and those we leave behind will suffer the fate of our Vietnamese and Cambodian friends in 1975. As U.S. combat brigades move out, contractors, aid workers and diplomats left behind will be more vulnerable to assassination and kidnapping. There could be a stampede for the exit and a Saigon ending in the Green Zone.......

As for this country, the argument over who is responsible for the worst strategic debacle in American history will be poisonous.

With a U.S. defeat in Iraq, U.S. prestige would plummet across the region. Who will rely on a U.S. commitment for its security? Like the British and French before us, we will be heading home from the Middle East.

What we are about to witness is how empires end."