Declaring victory and leaving

This is interesting -- No way out
International affairs writer Doug Saunders argues that Bush has already actually admitted defeat. He describes the press conference:
For the next hour, George W. Bush gave one of the strangest and most opaque performances of his presidential career. At the time, for those of us watching, it seemed that he was stubbornly, blindly sticking to his guns, refusing to change his Iraq plans by an angstrom despite terrible failures on the ground. Since then, it has become apparent that something entirely different had happened: The speech was a complete reversal and admission of defeat.
Saunders argues that the most important news at the press conference was Bush's willingness to let the UN handle the post-June 30 government, and the reference to NATO sending troops. Not only that, but the number of American troops is also inreasing.
This is the pinch Mr. Bush finds himself in: The semi-autonomy of June 30 will be possible only if he accedes to both a humiliating handover of U.S. authority to those hated international bodies, and a dramatic increase in U.S troops, spending and deaths -- all only 18 weeks from election day.