Myboynoah, I do appreciate you taking the time to respond. As you can see, not many others are even willing to try that, despite the fact that the questions are ridiculously obvious and necessary.
I will try to give a response to your main points, as an attempt to respond to every point will turn this into the longest thread that nobody will ever read.
With Spain, I don't see your point. I am aware of the reason that Spain withdrew from Iraq. You seem to offer it as support that withdrawing from Iraq doesn't keep us any safer (because it didn't keep them safer, as you demonstrated by the renewed effort to bomb them that was thwarted recently). But how is that helpful? We know for a fact that they want to bomb us in the US right now while we are in Iraq. Bush has announced that several terrorist attacks on US soil have been thwarted (and, for the sake of argument here, I assume we can take him at his word). If we withdraw from Iraq, they will still want to bomb us (as evidenced by your example in Spain). So whether we are in Iraq or not, they want to bomb us. So how does that help support your position that we need to remain in Iraq? Either way, their desire to bomb us remains the same. Right?
As for Pakistan, I am hardly saying that Pakistan is the only base for terrorism. I am saying it appears to be the biggest base for terrorism right now, and appeared to be the one of the biggest bases right after 9/11 (along with Afghanistan). Instead, we went to Iraq, which had no connection to 9/11 (we can agree on that, can't we?). Ergo, Iraq was a distraction from the actual purpose of our efforts (eradication of terrorists who would destroy us). Given that Afghanistan and Pakistan are still the primary bases of terrorism (a point bolstered by your example of the Spanish terrorists), it is safe to conclude Iraq remains a distraction. We have far fewer troops in Afghanistan than Iraq, and yet the intelligence points to far more terrorists in Afghanistan than Iraq.
Despite your claims about "working with NATO," I think most will agree that NATO isn't going to get the job done in Afghanistan. The point of me linking to that article wasn't to show you the opinion of the author for fixing Afghanistan, it was to show you the verifiable fact that Afghanistan is in turmoil right now, and worsening. Working with NATO isn't improving the situation there, and we can't dedicate full attention to the matter (distracted).
As for your statement that "finishing the job" means ensuring that Iraq has internal security, how is it possible to ever know that when they rely on the US as a crutch for internal security? We aren't even remotely close to internal security in Iraq. In fact, one could certainly argue that Iraq is no closer to internal security today on its own than it was 3 years ago. Recently, there have been serious calls for the Iraqi police to be completely disbanded once again due to the tremendous corruption that has infiltrated the police ranks.
If getting closer to our goal of internal security (which is more your goal than any sort of actual policy position of the US right now) is evidenced by spending less money, then what is evidenced by spending more money? The war is as expensive as it ever was.
We have the additional problem of the fact that our presence in Iraq appears to be benefiting the Shia and hurting the Sunni, despite the fact that the Shia are much more openly hostile to the US. This is also a problem for attaining internal security in Iraq.
There are, as you mentioned, almost unlimited variables in Iraq right now. To categorically say, as Mitt Romney and other Republicans have said, that withdrawing from Iraq means the terrorists win is baseless and unknowable. Even worse, it isn't meant as a statement of fact as much as it is meant as a tool of fear-mongering to bolster a party's power that otherwise might be crushed in the upcoming election.
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