Smells like victory.

BAGHDAD - About 3,500 American soldiers are scheduled to leave Iraq in the coming weeks, the U.S. military announced, as part of the Pentagon’s overall reduction in troop strength following last year’s “surge.”

Washington plans to trim it forces in Iraq to about 140,000 soldiers by the summer — from a peak of about 170,000 in October at the height of the troop buildup in Baghdad and surrounding areas.

The departing soldiers, part of the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, will redeploy to Fort Benning, Ga., the military said.

The U.S. sent some 30,000 additional troops into Iraq last year to help stem growing violence. The troop increase, a truce by a key Shiite Muslim militia and the rise of Sunni fighters who allied with the U.S. in the battle against al-Qaida were credited with a sharp decrease in bloodshed during the last 10 months.

Liberals will be quick to say that this isn’t enough.  That we need to bring all the troops home now.  But here’s the thing: We all want the troops to come home.  The only difference is the manner in which they return.  Some want them to abandon the mission in Iraq and retreat back to within our borders.  Others of us want the troops to complete the mission and leave Iraq a strong and stable country with a representative government in the midst of a sea of totalitarianism and oppression in the middle east.

We’ve made great strides toward the latter of those two goals in Iraq.  Under the leadership of General Petraeus our troops have beaten back the terrorists and given the Iraqi government breathing room in which to reconcile political differences.  Now the time has come where we can reduce the number of troops we have in harm’s way, but in order to ensure that the objectives those troops fought and died for aren’t lost the withdrawal must be slow.

Democrats want it to be quick for the sake of political expediency, but what’s more important?  The electoral chances of Democrats or the mission in the middle east which thousands of Americans have died for and millions of Iraqis are counting on?