We can't leave but we can't stay

Over at The Mighty Middle Michael Reynolds tells us Iraq is not like Vietnam in one important aspect.

At risk of quoting myself, Iraq is unfortunately not Vietnam because while Iraq has all of Vietnam's quagmire potential, it has none of Vietnam's strategic irrelevance. This war matters. It's not World War 2, the Civil War or the Revolution, but it's not Granada or Somalia, either.

So what will happen if we leave Iraq?

If we abandon Iraq there is a very great likelihood of a civil war. Such a civil war could draw Syria, Iran, Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia in as sponsors or active participants. It is very likely that relatively moderate governments would become more radicalized. It is likely that the Palestinians, seeing which way the wind is blowing would renew the intifada. We will have managed to move Al Qaeda from far-off, impoverished Afghanistan, to centrally-located, wealthy Iraq. It does not overtax imagination to picture Al Qaeda with its own oil reserves. The US position in the world would be terribly damaged.

So far I suspect Michael is correct, all good reasons why we can't leave. Michael has some solutions. Get rid of Rumsfeld--hard to argue the fact that he is the most incompetent Secretary of Defense in US history. Send more troops and do this by raising pay and reinstating the draft.

Just because we can't pull out/leave doesn't mean we can stay. The occupation has been so screwed up by Rumsfeld and company we are in a position where the various factions in Iraq do have one thing in common, they hate the United States and want us out. Under those circumstances, like Vietnam, more troops are only going to result in more targets not "victory".

There is another reason why we can't stay, it puts us all in grave danger. The meme we have heard repeatedly from the Bush administration is the "terrorists" hate us because of who we are, because of our freedom. Wrong--they don't hate us because of who we are they hate us because of where we are. The disaster of 911 happened because we had troops on sacred ground in Saudi Arabia. The Madrid and London bombings occurred because England and Spain had troops in Iraq. The real lesson from this is that keeping the oil flowing carries a big price tag.

More on how this relates to the "war on terror" latter.