No comment on the predictions or "only morally defensible" argument. That always seems the weakest card to play, when you've no confidence in your footing on a particular issue:

Giving the surge a few more months to see if this genocide has even the slightest chance of being avoided seems to me a defensible position. In fact, I think it's the only morally defensible position.

Presidents do have constitutional lee-way in running a war. If, after three and a half years, the situation is clearly worse than when we started, and there is no hope for progress in the foreseeable future, then the American people will demand an end to it - and Congress will respond with veto-proof majorities.

In September '07, we'll be in Iraq for 4 + 1/2 years, fwiw.