Beinart and Biddle for Leaving

Peter Beinart was just talking about why he came to the view that we need to withdraw from Iraq, essentially without residual forces, and start working on damage control in other parts of the world including a rapprochement with Iran.. His basic argument is very similar to mine and should be familiar to readers, but he mentioned an important source of establishmentarian support for this view, Steven Biddle at the Council on Foreign Relations. Check out, for example, this bit of congressional testimony:

Public support for the President’s surge policy in Iraq is at a very low ebb. Yet many Americans remain reluctant to withdraw from Iraq altogether. The result has been growing interest in a variety of compromise proposals that would reduce US troop levels but stop short of total withdrawal. Are these sound choices for US policy?

The answer is no.

Quite so. I hope the presidential candidates can be made to see this before January 2009. It's depressing to think of the war lasting that long, but even more depressing to imagine it continuing, CNAS-style, for years and years after the election.