Kaplan Stays the Course

Lawrence Kaplan once again tries to makes the case in The New Republic against leaving Iraq. Rebuttals from Sam Rosenfeld and Kevin Drum get at most all of the key points.

I have to say that I'm starting to find the appeals to idealism here quite tiring. It's worth going back and reading what the advocates of imperialism said during the high-tide of empire-building. They, too, were very idealistic. Having the right kind of wanting to help attitude just doesn't do very much work in these kind of circumstances. The effort to have the US government in general, and the US military in particular, run the nation of Iraq is inherently problematic. Having worthy ideals doesn't really make it less problematic.