If you scroll down to page 16 you’ll see despite the overwhelming unpopularity of US forces, just 35% of Iraqi’s want us to leave immediately while 66% want our forces to stay until some point in the future.

Truflo,

Let’s not revise history too much, okay? The invasion WAS a cakewalk – the occupation was not. We WERE greeted as liberators by the majority of the population but because of our nonexistent occupation plan, goodwill was gone within a couple of months. There WASN’T a serious divide between the Sunni and Shia – the Sunni-on-shia violence is a direct result of the USA’s inability to prevent AQI from starting a sectarian war.

Like it or not, we are stuck with GWB for another two years. His credibility is shot, but there’s not much of a choice, is there?

What’s ironic about the Democrat’s “plan” is that if it were enacted, and the surge is successful, we’d pull out at precisely the WRONG time. That’s one reason timetables are usually a bad idea.

The problem is that those supporting the surge are the same people who assured us invading Iraq would be a cake walk; are the same people who told the country our troops would be greeted as liberators; that there was no serious divide between Sunni and Shia, that stripping the Iraq army and civil service of all Baatist members was the right step and who again and again, despite reporting from the Pentagon suggesting the reality was otherwise, assured the country that things were getting better.

How anyone can be expected to believe them now is beyond me. I am certain Eric and Entropy are sincere in their concern for what will befall Iraq civilians once American troops pull out, and I have little doubt that their predictions will prove to be correct, but most recent surveys conducted in Iraq show that a majority of Iraqis want our troops to leave.

I am rather digusted by the way your mind works.

You’ve made the mental calculation that no matter what we try to do, “X” amount of people will die. You say precisely that, and even provide a timeline:

How ever many deaths that have ocurred there now, or, WHEN we leave, (and we will most certainly leave), will STILL BE ON OUR HEADS, now or ten years down the road! However if we leave now, it will be over long before ten years down the road. We cannot undue the mess you got us into, but we can get out of it and regroup with the Democrat plan!

You’ve made the calculation that the Iraqi people are savages, and no matter what the coalition tries to do, that Iraqi’s will butcher each other, and so it is better that we simply step aside and let an open-ended slaughter commence now. You state, in no uncertain terms, that your plan, the Democrat plan, is to run as fast as we can away and ignore the genocide you expect to occur in our wake.

You expect genocide, and push for the action that will trigger it.

You, sir, are a monster that I don’t have words to describe.

If General Petraeus can successfully wage the counterinsurgency he literally wrote the book on, the mass slaughter White Agent seems as inevitable needs not happen. That is reason enough to give the Petraeus plan a chance.

A well-meaning fellow in a very mixed neighbourhood decides to intervene in a family quarrel between a husband and a wife. Most of the neigbours advice this ‘good Samaritan’ to keep off, so does his family and children.

But this fellow, stricken by his conscience, first threatens the husband, then forcibly enters the house and starts living there, and finally kills the head of the family.

The shocked wife and children, some of them grown up, are totally bewildered at the development. With no coordinating and protective force around, the women and her children begin to assert themselves and soon there is a total chaos in the house, which gradually turns violent.

When the ‘good Samaritan’ tries to restore order, the friendly neighbours suggest to this fellow to get out in time so that the family sorts out its own problem. “No, now I can’t because they would kill each other,” is the fellow’s constant refrain.

The ‘good Samaritan’ is totally puzzled. “What the hell is going on, ” he begins to wonder. “I have rid these idiots of a tyrant, and now they are hell bent on killing each other. How can I leave them in this situation.”

The ‘good Samaritan’s’ wife and children begin to pressurise him and say enough is enough, ‘now darling dad please come back to your own home’.
Meanwhile the neighbours are so tired of the cussed and naive behaviour of this fellow that they refuse to intervene.

Some rumours are afloat that the fellow has also begin to mess around with the women in the family, and begin to behave violently with the young boys in the house. This gives a good opportunity to the bullies in the neighbourhood to intervene and aggravate the situation.

Finally, a day comes when the inhabitants of the house where he had forcibly planted himself, ask him to leave. “What the f*ck,” he tears his hair. “I have made such a sacrifice, leaving my own home and peace, spent such a lot of money on these idiots, and they want me to leave!!! If I leave these idiots will kill themselves. Oh, how can I do that!”

What should the ‘good Samaritan do’? Your time begins now!!!

How ever many deaths that have ocurred there now, or, WHEN we leave, (and we will most certainly leave), will STILL BE ON OUR HEADS, now or ten years down the road! However if we leave now, it will be over long before ten years down the road. We cannot undue the mess you got us into, but we can get out of it and regroup with the Democrat plan!

Burns is making speculation as if he can actually see the future. Sorry don’t buy it, “sadly”. IMO You don’t care about civilian deaths or you would have spoken your concerns long before it got to this, but “sadly”, you didn’t! I think…”stay the course’ was the once favorite sound bite. Lets not forget “we do not need more troops” that has somehow turn into a “surge”. IMO, like the silly enemies we have, you just don’t want to lose face.

Our military has FAILED to carry out George W Bush’s FAILED policy and you want to hang on until the last child is slaughtered in the vain hope that BUSH will become victorious, not America, or, the Iraqi people. That is my opinion. Is it visceral? Yes and you deserve it.

I agree with some of what you say in principle, but there are arguments that could make a pullout work. Violence would certainly increase significantly for a period of time, but perhaps in the long run it might prove better if a wider war could be contained. Ethnic cleansing is never pretty, but if it ultimately results in a lasting peace it might be worth the cost. I personally think it’s too dangerous a course, but it might be a valid argument and should be looked at.

The problem is the left isn’t interested in such debates. And to be fair, the right is myopic on it’s solution, which is fighting for the decade it will take to bring things under control. The right doesn’t want to admit that public support won’t last long enough for a counterinsurgency strategy to succeed. They’re banking that the surge will provide enough security to reduce our presence to sustainable levels from both a political and military readiness standpoint. No matter what happens in 2008, troop levels will go down because the Army is broken and cannot sustain even pre-surge deployment cycles.

One imperfect option is to end neutrality in the conflict and pick a faction as our paramilitary proxy. The trouble is, with the exception of the Kurds, pickings are slim for a reliable ally that could unite the country through a combination of force and popular support. I suspect at this point Iraqis would welcome a benevolent dictatorship if only for the security it would provide.

Again, options for the FUTURE should be the discussion, but everyone is too concerned with their body counts and politically expedient diatribes to actually generate and debate actual IDEAS.

A very accurate post, that sadly, will sway very few people here.

Thoe who desire a pullout cannot and will not face the fact that Iraqi casualties will skyrocket. As John Burns, Baghdad bureau chief of the NY Times noted this past week:

BURNS: If United States troops stay, there will be mounting casualties and costs for the American taxpayer. If they leave, I think from the perspective of watching this war for four years or more in Baghdad, there’s no doubt that the conflict could get a great deal worse very quickly, and we’d see levels of suffering and of casualties amongst Iraqis that potentially could dwarf the ones we’ve seen to this point.”

And later: “Most would agree there is a civil war, but a countervaling force exercised principally by Americans but also other coalition troops is a very significant factor that leaves the potential for a considerable worsening once you remove that countervaling force. . . Remove that countervaling force and then there will be no limit to this violence.”

Burns goes on to say something else that anti-war forces pointedly do not address: the significant chance of a regional war breaking out as a result of the precipitous pullout they call for.

Saudi Arabia has publicly stated that if the Shia (supported by Iran) start “ethic cleansing” of their co-religionists, they will support the Sunni, financially, and with weaponry. Saudi Arabia and Iran will likely engage in a regional war with Iraq as the battleground, and Iraqi civilians taking the brunt of the casualties. Should this conflict got from a proxy war to a direct conflict, the Persian Gulf will be completely shut down. Not a drop of oil will exit the Straits of Hormuz for the duration of a direct conflict.

This will cause us some pain here in the U.S., but we’ll get out of it with a recession and the job losses one gets with a downturn in the market. In developing nations, the resulting loss of oil could be catastrophic, especially if the war occurs or extends into winter.

Many will protest, but if a regional conflict occurs and drags on for too long, we might be forced back into military action, and we’ll get to start all over again, after tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands die needlessly.

Entrophy made good and valid comparisons to conflicts in Algeria and Vietnam, both nations where the insurgencies had been crushed, but where the French and Americans still lost the conflicts due to public pressure brought by left wing activists. The resulting massacres after the pullouts killed as many or more people than the wars themselves.

These facts were recently discussed here.

The war in Iraq is certainly winnable, and the strategy and tactics employed by Gen Petraeus are proven. Sadly, I don’t know that a misguided American left can see either the past damage they’ve caused, or the tens of thousands of more graves they’ll fill being “anti-war.”

Won’t be soon enough for me and DO NOT BRING hundreds of them HERE because they drew a federal paycheck. What do you want to do, start an insurgency here the first time somebody spits on a Muslim?

The cost? You right wingers are the only ones sweating the “cost”. Just do it.

We HAVE A SOLUTION, PLEASE ENCOURAGE YOUR STUPID REPUBLICAN SENATORS TO VOTE FOR IT!

Jesus talk about thick headed.

And, Swaraaj, thank you for reminding me that Iraq sucks, lots of people are dying, and the Bush policy has been a failure because no one else is doing so. I was completely ignorant of those facts as I’m sure was everyone else on the planet. (/snark) I’m sure it must have felt very good to post essentially the same mantra that thousands on the left post every single day. What a relief it is to know you care. Naturally, just like those thousands of other posts, you offer no solutions, no alternative policies to follow and no cogent analysis of where to go from here.

Just like those thousands of other posts, you ignore or downplay the costs (calling them a “myth” of all things) of the US picking up its ball and going home. To suggest that somehow Iraqi’s will stop killing each other if the US were magically gone tomorrow is the real myth – a delusional myth one must adhere to in order to make withdrawal a morally palatable choice. But your myth is not supported by any facts – in actuality, it’s well established that when US forces leave or reduce forces in mixed ethnic areas that Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence goes up.

Frankly, it’s easy to sit in front of a computer and pine for the good old Saddam days when innocents died by mere thousands instead of tens-of-thousands, but those days are GONE. The situation today in Iraq is what it is and I grow increasingly weary of criticism that offers no solution. Criticism without solution is disingenuous, lazy, and serves no other purpose but political ends.

The reason US involvement in this war (and I say involvement, because the war will continue when/if the US departs) continues is because its critics have not been able to express any alternative but various forms of withdrawal – hence their need to reassure themselves that Iraq will transform itself into a peaceful utopia once the “root cause” – the USA – is gone.

Re: Musharraf.

What do you think of Imran Khan? I’d be grateful if you could give us your thoughts.

Incompetence and repeated incompetence. What does it take to convince you of the truth in front of your eyes?

I don’t think Eric has reviewed the rate of killings, which keeps climbing, to the point that 600 Iraqis have died in just the past week – despite the crackdown on Baghdad.

Eric doesn’t want to contemplate the possibility that the ’surge” isn’t working. It’s his last best hope. If the surge doesn’t work, then he might have to consider that the war in Iraq left it worse off than it was under Saddam (something quite a few Iraqis are already saying).

Saying “it’ll be even worse if we leave!” is really very little different from saying “Gore or Kerry would have been even worse!” It’s a statement of faith, with no empirical analysis to back it up.