Quagmire Of The Vanities

More than six years later, we're still having the Village tell us that it's just too early to leave Iraq.

So what should the U.S. do? President Obama has already said he plans to remove all combat troops by August 2010, with a remaining force of 35,000 to 50,000 "support troops" in place until the end of 2011. There is pressure to pull out all the troops on a faster schedule, but there is also talk of slowing the timetable for the removal of combat troops.

The U.S. needs to decide what outcome it is willing to live with in Iraq. It's likely that if the U.S. withdraws all of its troops on schedule, the strategic balance will dramatically shift in favor of the Shiites, and they will press for full control over the state. This, in turn, will probably goad the Sunnis and Kurds back to war, likely ending in a brutal Shiite victory and the establishment of an authoritarian state.

If the U.S. wants to avert this scenario, it will need to create real incentives for Maliki and the Shiites to offer a fair deal that transfers real political power to the Sunnis and Kurds by the 2011 deadline, and then it needs to help them enforce it over time. This would require that those 50,000 "support troops" remain in Iraq until the new political institutions are firmly established, something most experts believe will take an additional five to 10 years.

One of the most robust findings in the civil war literature is the importance of active peacekeepers in helping to implement compromise settlements. Between 1940 and 2002, if peacekeepers were present on the ground, settlements were implemented and civil wars ended. If peacekeepers were not present, they were not.

Peace in Iraq is possible. But the U.S. shouldn't fool itself into believing that it can get peace and stability in Iraq without committing significant military and nonmilitary resources to Iraq well beyond 2011.

Screw Friedman Units, now we're into how many years if not decades we'll have to stay in Iraq, as if that will make the Iraqis love us more.

At some point we have to decide if Iraq is ever going to be a free country without the U.S. military propping it up. We have to decide to bring our men and women home. We have to decide if we can continue to afford trillions more on this country when we need that money now. We could of had health care reform several times over if we hadn't invaded Iraq. We have to leave. If they're not ready now, another decade won't make a difference. They'll try to kill each other anyway because the Iraqi government is totally dependent on us now as it is.

Our continued presence will not change the outcome, in other words. At some point we have to decide to take care of America's problems first and not Iraq's.

That point needs to be now. I honestly thought this discussion was largely over in Iraq. Our withdrawal is more or less assured.

How wrong I was, it seems.