Problems in Getting Out of Iraq

I have shared my perspective that the present state of Iraq is a (1) mess, (2) our responsibility (we did it!), but (3) we cannot walk away from what we did without (a) being irresponsible and (b) jeopardizing Iraq and the region even further.

Dan Senor writes in the Wall Street Journal that many of those I respected for stating their disagreement with the Bush initiative and now saying that we cannot just leave. These words from these special people should make us sober as we go about supporting those who are trying to establish a new strategy.

Brent Scowcroft
"The costs of staying are visible; the costs of getting out are almost never discussed. If we get out before Iraq is stable, the entire Middle East region might start to resemble Iraq today. Getting out is not a solution."

Anthony Zinni
"When we are in Iraq we are in many ways containing the violence. If we back off we give it more room to breathe, and it may metastasize in some way and become a regional problem. We don't have to be there at the same force level, but it is a five- to seven-year process to get any reasonable stability in Iraq."


"Friends of mine who are Iraqis--Shiite, Sunni, Kurd--all foresee a civil war on a scale with bloodshed that will absolutely dwarf what we're seeing now. It's really difficult to imagine that that would happen . . . without Iran becoming involved from the east, without the Saudis, who have already said in that situation that they would move in to help protect the Sunni minority in Iraq.

John Burns
"It's difficult to see how this could go anywhere but into a much wider conflagration, with all kinds of implications for the world's flow of oil, for the state of Israel. What happens to King Abdullah in Jordan if there's complete chaos in the region? . . . It just seems to me that the consequences are endless, endless."
ou pull out now, and catastrophe ensues, then it is very likely that the United States would have to come back in circumstances which, of course, would be even less favorable, one might imagine, than the ones that now confront American troops here."