I have recently voiced strong reservations about what seems to be emanating from some a helter-skelter, willy-nilly approach to Iraq disengagement: withdraw now and let the chips fall where they may. In the center are progressively more nuanced positions, and on the cautious side are those like me who insist on appraisal and preparation for three interrelated events bound to occur in one fashion or another, or seriously threaten to occur: 1) a more virulent civil war, claiming more lives, which could quite plausibly degenerate into a full-out genocide; 2) a failed state with many wild pockets emerging where terrorist retrenchment could occur in newly-minted safe havens; 3) a wider regional conflict as the dynamics of the Iraq situation, perhaps especially the two just aforementioned, overflow its borders and impact surrounding states in ways that threaten their national or expansionist interests.
In an editorial this week denouncing President Bush's latest call for US combat in IRaq into 2009, the New York Times instead endorsed a "responsible withdrawal (or redeployment)" to begin now. As phrased, despite the vagueness, I tentatively endorse that approach in turn, seeing it as embracing the concerns I have consistently raised. "Responsible," at a minimum, means not leaving the Iraqi people drenched in blood as a consequence of a venture that we undertook and an aftermath we failed to control.
