Do the Right Thing
Doing the right thing in and for Iraq, at this point, should rank high with other concerns specific to the US. The debate should be cast in moral terms, I suggest, rather than simply self-interested ones, though the two often coincide.
If the tide of political opinion carried us onto the sands of Iraq, aided by a stiff wind created by the administration, then the receding tide of public opinion will sweep us out. The question remains, however, whether this type of democracy yields sound moral and political decisions, ones that will survive the test of time and the principles that animate us as a nation.
In the haste to stanch the losses ? of service members, assets, treasure, political focus and all related items ? a war-weary nation seems poised to sacrifice, perhaps, a great deal more innocent Iraqis to a war we created and are responsible for, regardless of its wisdom. This not only reiterates former Secretary Colin Powell?s sagacious dictum, the ?Pottery Barn Rule,? but stands as a sentinel of how we should treat other human beings. The face of Iraq, in this regard, is not a recalcitrant insurgent or a bloodthirsty terrorist or an ineffectual parliament (off on vacation) or an incompetent or (politically) corrupt prime minister, but the sea of average folks, from wide-eyed children to young mothers and fathers to what is left of a talented student population to older folks just trying to contribute or get by to the elderly who are not so much swept by currents but battered by them. These latter folks, the average citizens, people with a heart and soul and mind and benevolent purpose, will be caught up in the fight to fill the vacuum that will be created by an American withdrawal ? and, more likely than not, will be killed in far greater numbers than they are now, perhaps to the point of genocide.
From this same vacuum and ensuing, more virulent civil war, surrounding nations probably will be drawn in somehow, roiling the situation, maybe spreading belligerency beyond its borders and, in their turn, enabling the deaths of so many more innocents.
These are my main concerns. A principled nation has to consider these matters at the forefront of its decision-making.
There are other concerns, of course. The outcomes in both Iraq but also the region could be inimical to our national interests. Iraq very well could become a failed state with its lacunae filled by terrorist groups. I don?t know if that is particularly worrisome given the range and effectiveness of our air power, and the ability of anti-terrorist ?striker groups,? presumably still stationed within an effective distance, to eliminate these terrorist pockets or degrade them enough to seriously injure their capability. This foregoing scenario ironically presupposes that we will have the Iraqi government?s ?permission? to carry out such missions on its terrain. The ?regional war? potential, a powder keg much less easily ignited, is nonetheless the worst-case scenario if extrapolated to its logical limits.
