If/When We Leave

The troubling news from the Turkey-Kurdistan border and the continued sectarian death toll throughout Iraq seem to me to recommend earlier withdrawal-redeployment in Iraq than is currently envisaged. The critical border between Turkey and Kurdish Iraq requires urgent attention; and the extra troops in Baghdad and elsewhere have failed to stem a slow rise in sectarian mass murder and torture. Shouldn't we be actively considering relinquishing Baghdad in order to salvage what is still salvageable in the north? William Shawcross and Peter Rodman argue today that the costs of such a decision, which they term "defeat", would not be worth paying. But when you analyze their argument, it rests almost entirely on the morale factor, and on a crude notion that the opponents of U.S. occupation of Iraq are somehow one, coherent bloc.

On the morale front, it's increasingly clear that whatever propaganda advantage al Qaeda gets from US withdrawal (and we'd be fools not to acknowledge they'd get a big lift) must be balanced against the massive propaganda disadvantage we sustain by continuing a doomed occupation. My sense is that al Qaeda has more to gain in the short-term from a US withdrawal; but in the long term, al Qaeda is better served by a continuing and doomed American occupation. Strategically, the balance seems to me to favor withdrawal to the Gulf states and the Kurdish-Turkey border. We're currently fighting on their terms and to their strengths. Time to reconfigure.

Morally, however, I'm caught short. Will we condemn more innocents to death by staying or by leaving? Would the short term costs of leaving be high but the long-term costs of staying higher? These are largely questions not susceptible to definitive answers. But my sense is that the best way to think of this equation is not a choice between "victory" and "defeat," but between cutting our losses and perpetuating a slow defeat. I hope I'm wrong. But we don't have that much more time to find out.

(Photo: An Iraqi woman looks on as US soldiers from the 1st battalion 28th Infantry Regiment search a vehicle during a random patrol around Bayaa neighbourhood, southeast of Baghdad, 06 June 2007. Two car bombs detonated at road intersections in a busy Shiite neighbourhood of Baghdad today, Iraqi and US defence officials said. Iraqi medics told AFP that seven civilians were killed in the explosions, but US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Scott Bleichwehl denied this, saying the attacks wounded four bystanders. By Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty.)