Rev. Jim Wallis:
The only moral and practical course now is to change U.S. policy, starting with an open, honest, and full national debate about one question - how to extricate U.S. forces from Iraq with the least possible damage to everyone involved - Americans, Iraqis, all their Middle Eastern neighbors, and a world longing for security. To achieve real security, we must defeat the agendas of both the terrorists and the militant neo-conservatives who seek endless war in response to terrorism. It is the neo-conservative's domination of American foreign policy that has so severely damaged our integrity around the world. We need a national debate on both how to get Americans out of Iraq and how to stabilize that devastated nation - neither of which can happen without the involvement of the international community, including Iraq's neighbors who have so much at stake in the outcome.
Everyone in Washington is now waiting for the recommendations of the Baker/Hamilton Commission, the bipartisan group authorized to come up with desperately needed new directions for U.S. policy, and whose recommendations will come in December. The Commission report will be the beginning of our needed national debate. For that debate to be successful, I believe the United States must agree to three things:
1. Reject all plans for permanent American military bases in Iraq.
2. Give up any unique claim on Iraqi oil.
3.Agree to substantially fund the re-building of Iraq without any special relationship to the contracts to do the job.
That's just taking responsibility for all the horrible damage we have done. Only after we have done so can we search for the practical and honorable ways to leave Iraq while seeking to help ensure its security and the political resolution of its future. Neither "staying the course" nor "cutting and running" is morally responsible or politically practical anymore, and a new course must now be found - given the rapid deteri0ration in Iraq, as soon as possible.
We must hope and pray that President Bush will heed the voice of the people in this last election and become a key participant in the national debate of how best to get out of Iraq - how to correct the mistake of his war. The first thing he should do is to stop saying the things he again said in Estonia this week - that there really isn't a civil war in Iraq, and al Qaeda is just stirring up sectarian conflict. More denials of the realities in Iraq while merely blaming outside terrorists is as ridiculous as it is embarrassing. Stop it! Just stop it! Such statements travel around the world and make the president sound like he wasn't paying attention on November 8.
We the people, through the Congress of the United States, must have that national debate. Hopefully this debate will include the White House, but if necessary, we must have it in spite of the administration. The American people have now spoken and must now change the course of the war in Iraq. Conducting that national debate must be one of the first orders of business for the new Congress - a real debate of the sort that the Bush administration failed to allow before, but now must politically accept. George Bush says he is responsible for this war, and he is. But we are all now responsible for stopping this war.
The House and Senate must lead the national debate on the war in Iraq, and seek alternatives to the flawed and failed policies that will just continue to kill more people. The lives of many Americans and Iraqis are at stake. We cannot afford to wait two more years.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-levine/the-best-thinking-on-how-_b_35386.html