Inappropriate Content: Kakistocracy©

Earlier today, I posted a nice chunk of Suzanne Nossel's not-very-cheery view of the prospects in Iraq if we cut and run, as the saying goes. And yet there are voices calling for withdrawal across the blogosphere. Here are two examples. First, Kevin Drum gives the rational case for a well-planned, well-articulated phased withdrawal. Then, National Review contributor Andy McCarthy explains the emotional punch packed by the latest news.

Drum:

But what I learned over a couple of decades of product management was this: pay attention to big trends, not to the daily ups and downs. If the big trends are in your favor (growing market, solid product), individual setbacks shouldn't panic you as long as your overall execution is respectable. Sure, it's a drag to lose a big deal or miss a launch deadline, but those things won't kill you if you're working in a broadly healthy business environment.

Conversely, if the big trends are against you, don't kid yourself into complacency by cherry picking minor pieces of good news. Thursday's sales were up! We just got a callback on that big IRS bid!

That's where we are with Iraq. Yes, the constitutional deadlock might end. And we might have individual military successes here and there. But the big trends are inescapably against us. The insurgency is not dying down and shows no signs of doing so. American forces are viewed as occupiers. Ethnic tensions continue to boil barely below the surface. Rebuilding is going so slowly as to be almost invisible. We're undermanned, and additional troops are not in the cards from either the U.S. or the rest of the world. Militias are running broad swaths of the country and the training of Iraqi security forces is obviously going poorly. The almost certain end state is either civil war, an Islamic state, or both.

One of the biggest differences between good managers and bad managers is that good managers are willing to face up to bad news and act on it. That's what needs to happen here. There are too many big trends working against us to allow us to pretend that a few schoolhouses and half a dozen squads of Iraqi MPs are going to turn the tide.

So: we can wait until things get even worse and withdrawal becomes even more painful, or we can announce a plan now that makes the best of a bad situation and encourages the best outcome still plausibly open to us. We can put specific goals and specific timetables in place, do our level best to meet them, and then leave. Or we can wait until disaster forces us out. But don't let minor events fool you. One way or another, we'll be gone soon. Shouldn't we do it on our terms?

McCarthy:

Now, if several reports this weekend are accurate, we see the shocking ultimate destination of the democracy diversion. In the desperation to complete an Iraqi constitution — which can be spun as a major step of progress on the march toward democratic nirvana — the United States of America is pressuring competing factions to accept the supremacy of Islam and the fundamental principle no law may contradict Islamic principles... Like most Americans, I would like to see Iraq be an authentic democracy — just as I would like to see Iran, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, etc. be authentic democracies. But I would not sacrifice American lives to make it so.

But even if I suspended disbelief for a moment and agreed that the democracy project is a worthy casus belli, I am as certain as I am that I am breathing that the American people would not put their brave young men and women in harm's way for the purpose of establishing an Islamic government. Anyplace...

And if the United States, in contradiction of its own bedrock principle against government establishment religion, has decided to go into the theocracy business, how in the world is it that Islam is the religion we picked?

The emphasis is his. The feeling is mutual.