Time to get out, part 3,218

In this morning's wapo, the every insightful William Raspberry asks the question, "Is it time for America to leave Iraq?", provides a number of reasons why we should not leave Iraq immediately, and then shoots them down. First, some hypothetical reasons why it would be wrong to go.

Why not now? Politically, it would require a concession -- confession? -- that the whole thing was a mistake. President Bush seems incapable of reaching or articulating such a conclusion -- unless forced to do so by a public outcry reminiscent of the Vietnam era and a diminishing ability to attract young people into the armed forces. More than 1,300 American troops have died in this war. What would walking away do to their families and to military morale?

What would we say to the British, the Australians and the others in the coalition who have suffered political damage and lost lives in support of our war? What friend or foe could ever again take seriously an American commitment? Even Israel might start to doubt our reliability.

What of the moral considerations? Our walking away, with or without a declaration of victory, would be a death sentence to those Iraqis who worked with us in furtherance of our announced mission to deliver democracy to Iraq.

And what, finally, of the "you break it, you own it" imperative (which Pottery Barn says is not its policy)?

We can argue all day that Saddam Hussein was a tyrant whose defeat and humiliation should evoke no sympathy from us. But he did have a functioning country. There was a government in place. People went to work and to the market and to school in relative safety. Can anyone really believe that the U.S.-spawned anarchy has left the Iraqi people better off? We broke it. Do we have the moral right to walk away with the shards scattered across the floor?

All compelling arguments, but he also quotes Naomi Klein, who gives, perhaps, the most solid reason that, while leaving is bad, staying is worse.

Klein acknowledges that we've broken Iraq, but she argues that our continued presence there doesn't fix anything and only makes it worse. We don't need to "own" the country, she says, only acknowledge the breakage, pay for it and leave. Our continuing presence, she argues, is a magnet for violence against the Iraqis, and our plans for elections seem calculated to spark "the civil war needed to justify an ongoing presence for US troops."

Our "staying the course" doesn't begin to fix what we broke, but rather continues the breakage.

Is it time for us to walk away?

He even provides a new (and interesting) rationale for the concept of "declare victory and go home."

A surprising number of readers of this column think it is. [time to leave.] And two have independently come up with a pretext for doing so right away. Walter Gordon in Delaware and Christina Warren in California both argue for sending either all or a substantial portion of our Iraq-based troops and resources to the tsunami-devastated region around the Indian Ocean.

It would get us out of Iraq and, given that the stricken area is largely Muslim, might go a long way toward defeating the notion that we are anti-Islam.

I've heard worse reasons. This article would be an excellent source of quotes and ideas to send to your Senators and Representatives. (Hint hint hint.)