I'm always torn on the Iraq issue. On one hand, we should have never gone in there. On the other hand, I think Colin Powell was right to reference the rule, "You break it, you own it." Prime Minister al-Maliki is (unsurprisingly) delusional to think Iraq can survive right now without a U.S. presence. It can't even survive
with a U.S. presence! (Due, in no small part, to the incompetence of this administration and its removal of any military intelligence which doesn't agree with it.) So, on one hand, we have the fact that we never should have gone into Iraq, it's distracting us from more important things such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, and finding Osama Bin Laden, and that until there is new leadership in America there can be very little hope for substantial change in the direction Iraq is going. In the meantime, the longer we stay in Iraq, the more American soldiers are killed for a war we never should have started in the first place.
On the
other hand, as Uncle Ben told Spider-Man
, with great power comes great responsibility. Iraq is in the mess it is in because we not only started a war we shouldn't have, but also because the current administration has been severely lacking in its planning and management of the war. It is important to set goals for the Iraqi government and people, but the Bush administration has displayed over the years a complete lack of understanding regarding the complexities that exist in the region. This is not to mention the delusional expectation that Iraq would, in the course of a few years, suddenly become a stable democracy after a whole generation living under dictatorship combined with the ethnic and religious issues.
In other words, whatever responsibility the Iraqi people have for the shambles their country is in, the United States has more. Bush opened a Pandora's Box without having any clue what was inside, and now our military and Iraqi people - both innocent and less-than-innocent - are paying for it. It is very tempting to take the selfish way out and say that they should fix their own problems and the American military shouldn't be involved. It is, however, America's fault that those problems have reached the level they have in the first place. Not to mention, how many people (on the "liberal" side of the coin at least) would also say that it was good for us to (basically) let the Rwandans kill themselves and deal with their problems without U.S. involvement? Or, for that matter, how many would say we (as the U.S., or as the broader international community) should not bother interfering in Darfur and let those people deal with their problems themselves? Or, again, what about Kosovo?
So I have a hard time with the idea that we should just pull out - even if it's done gradually over time. It's a very tempting proposal, but it strikes me as the political equivalent of taking over a company, running it into the ground, and then leaving with a nice big package. What I would much rather see is Democrats working hard to force this administration not to leave, but to fundamentally change course, with respect to both the military and international relations. We took an Iraq which was cracked and then smashed it into the ground. We can't fix it ourselves, but we owe it to the Iraqi people who are living in extreme fear and violence right now to do our best to repair the damage that we've done to our international relationships and work hard to create a
real coalition based not on American supremacy but on global cooperation.
But, then again, that can't happen to the degree it needs to until Bush is out of office, so maybe it's better to just pull out after all. Like I said, I'm torn. One thing I do know, though, is that PM al-Maliki has not only been a poor leader, but is now delusional regarding the ability of his country to hold itself together.