Leaving Las Ve--er, Baghdad

Andy Sullivan blogs:

The Arab establishment was not too fazed by the removal of Saddam. But they're terrified of Iraqis actually determining their own future. And they will do everything and anything they can to stop it. That means that the terror attacks will continue for years. They are now directed at the infidel; but they will soon be directed more squarely at any elected Baghdad government. Do we have the stomach to hang in there if a future Baghdad government asks us to? That's the question.(emphasis added)

Sullivan is one of the most stringent supporters of the war I read regularly. Now even he seems to be admitting our retreat from Iraq is inevitable. After all, a democratic Iraqi government will ask us to leave: four out of five Iraqis want us out, and that's from a poll done before the prison abuse story broke. Therefore, pledging to stay in Iraq unless we're asked to leave is a pledge to leave Iraq.

The problem, it is alleged, is that a U.S. pullout will leave Iraq in even worse chaos than it is now. (Check out William Kristol's NPR interview.) This is true. This is very true, and so far no real solution seems to have penetrated. In The Nation's forum called "How to Get Out of Iraq," most of the various contributors merely reiterated why it was a really bad idea to invade in the first place.

Of course invading Iraq was a horrible mistake. But we are now in a Kobayashi Maru senario: no-win. We can't legitimately stay in Iraq, because they, y'kno, hate us and both sides seem to enjoy doing unspeakable things to each other. We can't leave because there is no one capable to preventing civil war and chaos, which are, y'kno, bad.

(A side note on the Kobayashi Maru: the only way to win is to cheat. John Brady Kiesling proposes just that in The Nation forum I mentioned. It's the only reasonable option I've heard. A horrible gamble, yes, but it's better than nothing.)

Perhaps there is no solution to our problem--dare I say, quagmire? But I rather think there is a solution to be found. We have never lacked ideas. The problem is with those who think that we can simply leave Iraq. Bush went in without knowing what to do after we overthrew Saddam. Let us not go out without knowing how to make a graceful exit.

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