Forget the Senate Vote, the Pullout from Iraq Will Commence Forthwith…

So the Senate Dems couldn't muster enough votes for either of their proposals to set a deadline for yanking troops out of Iraq.

That failure–expected, really, of a party that ran John Kerry for president and elected Harriet Miers fan Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) as their top dog in the World's Fattest Greatest Deliberative Body–shouldn't put off folks looking for the U.S. to get the hell out of Iraq. As this SF Chronicle account suggests, the troops will likely be coming home in dribs and drabs anyway:

Despite Thursday's votes, it is widely expected that the number of U.S. military personnel in Iraq will fall from the current 127,000 as the November elections approach. Republicans, who went on record in the House and Senate solidly behind President Bush's conduct of the war, still believe a significant decrease in troop levels will help them in the midterm elections.

Army Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, predicted within hours of Thursday's Senate votes that the size of the U.S. fighting force will shrink this year.

"I'm confident that we'll be able to continue to take reductions over the course of this year," Casey told a Pentagon news conference, accompanied by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Whole thing here.

Jonathan Rauch explained last December that the pullout has begun here.

On the 3rd anniversary of the Iraq invasion, Reason asked a bunch of know-it-alls to tell us what to do now. Check out responses here.