Republicans implicitly giving the Iraq surge an October deadline

Although Republican congressional supporters of President Bush's troop surge in Iraq are equally adamant that no withdrawal deadline should be included in the funding legislation, already they appear to be implicitly giving the surge plan an October deadline. Just this morning I wrote a post in which I said that "I doubt that there are very many Republicans who would privately dispute the assertion that even they need to see some very significant results by October to warrant a continued firm commitment to remaining in Iraq." Now, just a few hours later I read on Bloomberg (this may have been on TV before I wrote my post, but I don't watch TV) that even the Republican House Minority Leader Boehner has an October deadline in mind for wanting to see results for the surge:

By the time we get to September, October, members are going to want to know how well this is working, and if it isn't, what's Plan B?

Anticipating a "Plan B" is a long ways from contemplating withdrawal of troops, but this does show how the level of commitment to Iraq is eroding even among diehard congressional supporters.

Besides, everybody knows that there is no "Plan B" and there won't be.

"Plan B" will be the code name for grudgingly shifting towards troop withdrawal while not explicitly saying it is troop withdrawal.

-- Jack Krupansky