If the big fear is humiliation via a stinging defeat, then staying risks an even bigger defeat next time. If we run the armed forces into the ground in a bogus, draining war, we will be close to unable to fight the next one; one that might be much more necessary.

Who will be the last soldier to die for a mistake?

I think that "staying the course" has become code for not knowing what in the world to do, but thinking that getting out now is an admission of defeat.  I agree with that logic too.  If the U.S. were to withdraw now, then that could very easily be seen as an admission of defeat at the hands of the insurgents, so we are left with Kissinger's definition of an honorable withdrawal from Vietnam: there has to be a reasonable period of time between U.S. soldiers leaving and the continued Iraqi descent into chaos.  From my vantage point (in my living room, PJs, just finishing a bowl of Cheerioes), you don't avert that problem by refusing to leave until things get really bad (that would, in fact, be an actual defeat) but you also have that problem if you leave right away.  What is needed is a tough love type of plan that Republicans usually love.  We should simply announce that we are withdrawaing our troops at such and such a rate and the remaining forces will focus on X (probably border security) and will be all gone by the end of 2006.  That way we get out, but any chaos is the responsibililty of the Iraqi security forces that we will have put on notice by withrawing from the cities and central Iraq first.  In addition, while the insurgents can say that they defeated us (which they probably did), it is not the same type of defeat as what we suffered in Vietnam, the Soviets felt in Afghanistan or the Israelis experienced in Lebanon.

Does anyone not want to leave because of the descent into madness that will quickly follow our abscense in Iraq right now, or is it merely humiliation?

Goddamn bastards in the White House.

I suspect that there is nothing constuctive that we can do there. Anything we do will only make matters worse. We have this large ego that tells us we are the only ones who can fix it. We can't. We really have to get over it.

The best we can do is to bring in others ...the U.N. or anybody that we can somehow convince to help fix this mess. But, we can't be seen as the ones authoring the fix. No one will trust us. Why should they? We already lost the war. The only question is how long it takes us to figure that out.

We should get out NOW. A soldier from my home town (Madison, WI) is being buried this week. His enlistment was up last October, but he was ilegally "stop-lossed" and kept in, sent to Iraq and killed. How many others are there like him? Cheney and the rest of his evil administration should be held to account for every single person who has died in this bogus war. We should get out now and the "defeat" should be hung around the necks of cheney and bush and the rest of the dishonest, criminal and greedy people who started, supported and profitted from this unnecessary debacle. This is their defeat and they should eat it. And if there's any justice, it should lead to their political defeat, disgrace and prosecution. With the more than ample evidence of their lies in starting and maintaining this war, I don't understand how any family that's lost a member in the war wouldn't be outraged and calling for an end to the war and the administration that needlessly started it.

We're all weary of analogies to the big 'V,' but seeing the phrase 'humiliating defeat' I couldn't stop thinking of this passage from Hannah Arendt's Lying in Politics: Reflections on the Pentagon Papers:

From 1965 on, the notion of a clear-cut victory receded into the background and the objective became "to convince the enemy that he could not win." Since the enemy remained unconvinced, the next goal appeared, "to avoid a humiliating defeat," as though the meaning of defeat in war were mere humiliation. What the Pentagon Papers report is the haunting fear of the impact of defeat, not on the welfare of the nation but "on the reputation of the United States and its President."

Thus shortly before, during the many debates about the advisability of using ground troops against North Vietnam, the dominant argument was not fear of defeat itself or concern with the welfare of the troops in the case of withdrawal but: "Once US troops are in, it will be difficult to withdraw them without admitting defeat." There was finally the "political" aim "to show the world the lengths to which the United States will go for a friend" and "to fulfill commitments."

All these goals existed together, almost in a helter-skelter fashion; none was permitted to cancel its predecessors. For each addressed itself to a different "audience" and for each a different "scenario" had to be produced. McNaughton's much-quoted enumeration of US aims in 1965: "70%: To avoid humiliating defeat (to our reputation as a guarantor). 20%: To keep South Vietnam (and the adjacent territory) from Chinese hands. 10%: To permit the people of South Vietnam to enjoy a better, freer way of life," is refreshing in its honesty but was probably drawn up to bring some order and clarity into the debates on the forever troublesome question of why we were conducting a war in Vietnam of all places.

This problem could be at least made less dreadful if the ideologues at 1600 Pennsylvania would play nicer.

If we basically took a big financial hit, gave all the contracts to key allies, UN Security council members, arab nations, as part of a deal to get a genuine multi-national force involved.

As drastic as it sounds, an Indian/Pakistan solution might be necessary. If there is no light at the end of the tunnel, do a three way partition. It would increase security immensely. Each of the three countries would also be less powerful than Iraq as a whole. Turkey must be brought on board for Kurdistan though, and that is very unlikely without some serious arm twisting and flat out bribes.

Either way, we are going to have to buy our way out of this situation with cold hard cash, not with more blood.

Boston B and the rest are correct: the Iraq debacle will be blamed on the Left, and especially the next president if he or she is a Democrat.

What we can hope for, and work for, is to take back the Senate next year. At that point, we'll have some footing for investigations and prosecution. If this war is still claiming American lives at that point, I would think the public would be on our side. Let's hope so.

The right answer is to allow the duly elected representatives of the Iraqi people to draw up a withdrawal plan.  We should provide any reasonable level of assistance they request.  We should push strongly for the withdrawal of significant troops at the earliest moment.  But the decisions around our exit must be -- and be seen as -- the choices of the duly constituted Iraqi government.

The nice thing about this tactic is that it could force some Republicans to "let the cat out of the bag" as to the real reasons for the war.  Bases?  Oil?  Whatever.  Upthread, someone pointed out that according to W, we've already won: Iraq  no danger to us or our allies, Saddam completely disarmed.  The President repeatedly insisted that these were the sole objectives to be acheived -- and they are acheived.  We can even boast of having helped Iraqis constitute a freely elected government.

If it's not guns (bases) or oil, what exactly are we doing there?

Iraq is ALL downside, the only question is which downward slope is at least marginally gentler than the rest.

Exactly right.  But as of now the Dems won't be making the decision.

I believe that our presence is exacerbating the situation.  However, if we pull out, there will be a bloodbath of some sort.  But a bloodbath is happening now.

If I were in charge, I would announce a gradual drawdown of troops, and then begin to do just that.  We seem to be close to losing control of the situation now, so staying the course does not seem a viable option.

I worry is that if we pull the troops out, the Bush administraion will start another war.  As of now, the resources are not available.  They have "disassembled" Iraq, and they might move on to another country.

Where are the military leaders bold enough to tell the president that he is destroying  the Army, the National Guard, and the Army Reserves?   

Bushbag did it again. He has successfully put all the Thinking tank heads in Check! Just like he got us to invade Iraq.

And, I might add, what course?

"Stay the course" sounds very honorable and resolute, but if you translate it into the practical reality of what it means -- "keep throwing 21-year-old kids into a meat grinder" -- it loses some of its moral attractiveness.

Granted, this translation might seem a bit harsh for polite, wonkish circles, but it's the one parents across the U.S. are using as they tell their kids not to join the military.

I posted on this very site yesterday about the need to face up to this  problem, and specifically addressed in a comment how I think Democrats should put the burden on Bush to define and communicate a new mission that restores the unspoken contract embodied the Powell Doctrine -- a clear, achievable goal that minimizes the risks to our troops.

As I say there, "defining a winnable goal/mission would require sitting down with our generals, the Iraqi government, and our allies -- not just our current allies, but any potential ones that could be brought into play via bribery somehow."

In practice, that would probably be something similar to what rwcox123 alludes to above -- providing limited air/armor backup to the Shiite militias ... um, I mean the new Iraqi army as they battle it out with the Baathists, but mostly withdrawing to guard the borders.  And if even that is unworkable, then there may be no choice but to pull out.

I completely agree with all those who saw withdrawing would be a disaster, but the fact is, no sane parent would tell his or her child to join the military under the current conditions.  And that makes "staying the course" an untenable option.

 This hits the nail precisely on the head.  I'm beginning to lose patience with the question of what "we" should or shouldn't do now in Iraq.  The fact is, "we" aren't doing anything; it's the mainly lower middle class and working class kids who got suckered into  joining the armed forces to defend their country.  I don't know what's good for the Iraqi people at this point, but I doubt that any of the criminal element in this Administration has any idea or really cares one whit, either. But I do know that staying in Iraq is a foul and bloody betrayal of the young Americans who have been duped and Shanghaied into duty there.  And this matters enormously.

Personally I think we need to exit the situation in a careful way.  As long as the US is in Iraq, the anti-American sentiment will remain and the motivation of the insurgence will stay high.  Once we begin to exit the area and the Iraqi government is seen as taking over, I believe the insurgency will fizzle out.  Staying will only prolong the tension.

No, there is no good solution, either for us or for the people in Iraq who might want to live under a secular and moderate government.  But I think the first step that has to be taken is that there needs to be an attempt to reach some sort of détente within this country about the war.  I know that it’s frustrating for those of us who opposed the war from the beginning, who were shunted aside and wholly unable to exercise any sort of political influence in the run-up to the war or during the war itself (unlike in Britain) and who have now been proved crushingly right about both the flimsy nature of the evidence and the Pandora’s box that was likely to be opened upon eliminating Saddam Hussein, but there it is.  The truth of the matter is that there were a plethora of legitimate reasons to be in favor of military action to remove Hussein (ironically the best reason is the one that was never mentioned, namely to stop the devastating impact of the UN sanctions on the people of Iraq), and if the anti-war crowd doesn’t handle the current situation with a little more grace, it’s going to be difficult to build a broad consensus for action, especially if that action involves a military withdrawal.

The US descent or the Iraqi  descent?

"Stay the course."  People who say this suffer from a severe case of Cranial-Rectal Adhesion Syndrome.

"Stay the course" and lose approximately 1,000 dead and 15,000 wounded a year (anyone who believes this is going to stay at this rate has CRAS so bad they haven't seen daylight in a decade). 

Yesterday, Air Combat Command of the USAF had to cut their training hours by SIXTY PERCENT and transfer those hours to cover combat missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Since most of you doubtless know nothing about flying airplanes, let me fill you in on an important point:  flying airplanes is like playing the piano - the more you practice, the better you get.  And you cannot substitute operational hours for training hours, because you're already supposed to know what's what and if you don't you'll be dead pretty fast.

Essentially, this is an admission that the Air Force is as badly broken as the Army, just without so many boys and girls coming home in a box.

The Army had to take their OpFor trainers at Ft. irwin and turn them into a combat unit, which means the Army can no longer train for the kind of missions it has to be able to do outside of Iraq.  Right now, the American Army couldn't fight a real war anywhere else, because there's been no training for the past two years.

Thanks to "staying the course" we now have a military unable to deal with threats outside of Iraq, a military whose effectiveness declines monthly, a military that has not met its monthly recruiting goals for any month in 2005, and no prospects of this changing.

As a result of "staying the course" the United States is less secure and more vulnerable to threats and problems around the world than we were when you microcephalic morons listened to this goddamned fool in the White House when he started lying us into war three years ago this month. 

The truth is, you "stay the course" idiots are the ones who are morally and intellectually bankrupt, who are responsible for going along with the wrecking of your country.  You are bigger fools than the last bunch who said we had to "stay the course" to get "peace with honor." 

There was no peace and no honor to be had in Vietnam and there is none to be had in Iraq. You don't get peace or honor in dishonorable circumstances, and there are no circumstances more dishonorable in American history than the circumstances that took us into Iraq in a war-by-choice with the decision made by a moron.

There are no "Iraqi Democrats" for you to save.  There are only tribal politicians unable to decide where to have lunch, let alone how to run the country, and that is not going to change. 

Leave now, and the result will be the same as it will be if we leave in 2019 - with the exception that there will be far fewer American casualties, likely far fewer Iraqi casualties, an American economy that hasn't gone completely into the tank, and our armed forces will be able to be saved before they are totally destroyed by this gaggle of far-right idiots.

If you really want to serve your country, get us the hell OUT of Iraq!

What would be the effect if we Americans were to depose the Bushies, turn them over to the international courts for trial as war criminals, apologize to Iraqis and agree to pay fully for the reconstruction of their country by their own workers?  The shock of our doing this just might influence the warring factions there to compete for the rebuilding dollars instead of killing each other.  Then Bush would be the one to lose in Iraq, not the US, and our reputation would soar in the world, Moslem areas included.

Yes, that is an extreme plan, but something along that line is at least a possible way to salvage all that is salvageable from the Bush war crimes. 

For the most part the Iraq War has been a disaster on most fronts.

Our war of aggression against Iraq strategically has been a failure.  The credibility of the US took a hit.  Then Sec'y of State Colin Powell went before a dubious UN and made our case for war.  Saddam had all those WoMD and was in violation of UN sanctions Powell claimed.  He had all those nice pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one (for those familiar with the song Alice's Restaurant).  World opinion in the UN was not swayed by our case.  The weapons inspectors had been there no significant amount of WoMD were found.  So we decided to invade unilaterally, for all intents and purposes.  Sure there was a "coalition of the willing" but outside of the UK there were no other countries willing to put significant numbers of their troops in harms way.  But in we went...

Less then 2 years earlier we were attacked by terrorists.  Those terrorists called Afghanistan home at the time.  The world was shocked and angered by what happened on 9/11 and world opinion was on our side, including most of the Arab countries.  Bush said he was declaring war on terrorism and that we needed to invade Afghanistan to break up the Al-Qaeda terror network which was protected by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.  The world agreed and even Pakistan agreed to assist us in that war.  The world finally seemed ready to address the problem of global terrorism...then came Shock and Awe.

The invasion of Iraq was an overreach of biblical proportions.  I can only assume the Administration thought one, there had to be tons of WoMD there justifying the invasion and two, that world opinion would be on our side to remove a tyrant and threat to global security in Saddam.  But a funny thing happened on the way to the Forum...we couldn't find said WoMD.  We looked high and low sending David Kay and others in, but no WoMD.  A skeptical world became more so.  We alienated many close, long time allies like Canada, France and Germany.  We lost a government friendly to us in Spain.  Bush and Administration officials tried to tie Saddam to the 9/11 attacks, that was rebuffed by the bipartisan 9/11 Commission.  So we settled on "Saddam was killing his own and had plans for aggression in the future".  The justifications for the Iraq war were an ever changing story.

Meanwhile on the Arab Street the sympathy and support for the US that existed just after 9/11 had long since vanished.  It was replaced by anger and suspicion.  To the Arab World we now were just another invading army.  Iraq became a magnet for terrorists, there was nationalist anger by many Iraqi citizens and the insurgency was born.

But as bad as it was getting it was about to get worse...Abu Ghraib.  Our reputation internationally took a hit by our false pretenses of our invasion but when the pictures from Abu Ghraib surfaced the many in the US and almost all of the rest of the world was outraged.  Naked Iraqi prisoners stacked in piles.  A female US soldier leading a prisoner around on a leash.  A vicious dog in the face of another prisoner chained to a cell.  Everybody wanted to know how this happened.  The Pentagon blamed "rogue" elements within the US military were at fault and the Pentagon did not order the torture.  Then came the memo by Alberto Gonzalez, legal counsel for the president, condoning torture.  It seems our government did condone the torture at the highest levels and tried to dismiss the Geneva Convention as "quaint".  And the torture was not only happening in Iraq but also at Gitmo. 

The insurgency in Iraq grew and the US military reached the breaking point, a "message" had to be sent.  We declared Fallujah a "free fire zone" and leveled the city.  The targets were supposed to be terrorists but most credible reports indicated they fled the city before we razed it.  All that was accomplished was to create more anti-US animous.  But the US and UK pushed ahead with planned Iraqi elections.  When the elections were held it was the first good news out of that country in a long time.  And although it has taken time it appears the Iraqis are finally pulling together their government...but at what cost?

Thousands of American soldiers have been injured, maimed or killed.  Estimates put Iraqi deaths at possibly over 100,000.  We have damaged our credibility and alliances with the rest of the world, especially the Arab world.  The war on terrorism has been dealt a blow, I suspect not a fatal blow, but it caused a serious set back.  The only way to make it worse is to militarily pull out of Iraq.  Conquering armies have a moral responsibility to establish a post war government in the vanquished country and try to ensure order.   The Iraqi government is not completely in place yet.  The Iraqi police and military control their country at this time and probably for years.  If we withdraw Iraq will be beset with sectarian violence and possibly regress into civil war.  We have no choice but to do the best we can in a bad situation Bush has put us in because if we pull out too early it only will make bad bad situation even worse.

You know that dream where you're slogging through hip-deep mud and the monster that's chasing you is gaining? Unfortunately, we aren't going to wake up from this one.

Any thinking, feeling person knows we should stop sending good lives after wasted ones, but the politics are impossible. Departing now would surely result in something awful, which would be blamed on those who pushed for the departures, so because our leaders care more about their jobs than the lives of our young, we will stay. We will not leave until so many have died that a ground swell arises among the somnambulant Americans, at which point we will get out, messily of course, and then the awful thing will happen anyhow.

The only consolation is that a few Americans might learn you can't invade a country, kill tens of thousands and expect any kind of a good outcome. But shouldn't we have learned that lesson about 2000 years ago?

I think we should throw conventional wistom in the trash and channel a Nixon/Kissinger realpolitik solution:

1) Over the next year or so build up the Iraqi security forces as much as possible realizing most or the recruits will be Shiite with just enough Sunnis to ensure the "insurgency" will have plenty of  ears and eyes on the inside.

2) Announce a pullout in 2007, abandon any permanent bases there and do not discourage (or quietly encourage) the fledgling Iraqi government's closeness to the Iranian Islamic "republic". 

3) When the US steps out,  the power vacuum created will suck the Irainians in and the whole mess will be theirs. It will divert Iran's attention from nukes, and destabilitze their theocracy. The Sunni Iraqis will ensure that the current civil war will go on for a decade or more and maybe enlist the Kurds too. It might even refocus the Wahabbi/Sunni Jihad supporting populations all over the mideast to foucs in on the Shiites in Iraq-Iran as an easier, closer, less oil business disrupting target than western oil client countries

In Iran over a decade or so the demographic bomb slowly detonate and all the current dissafected youth will be the dissaffected midddle aged/ middle class.  The current theocracy will start to age out and die and the younger true believers will get tied down in Iraq.  When they start drafting the even more dissafected children of today's dissafected youth the whole regime will come down and a more moderate less theocratic regime will replace it .  If we can remove that regional grand excuse... the israeli palestinean conflict by sitting on the Israelis and make them evacuate the territories and finish the great big wall around Israel along the 1967 borders, that excuse to target the US will be gone and maybe we can have a little peace.

(of course then the problem will be israeli right wingnut terrorists targeting the US.)

How's that for cynicism  I can feel the chill from the smile in nixon's grave. 

I read the posts above and am heartened that so many people have this Iraq situation under serious consideration. 

But I believe we need to question some assumptions about why the Iraq situation developed as it did since 2002. We assume that the war-mongering types were alternatively full of hubris or stupid or both.  What if we are wrong in those assumptions?  Seems to me that we really need to consider that we may be witnessing actions diabolically  utilized by persons in power in the USA who may simply not have 'normal' human caring hearts [the hearts they were born with being altered inexorably through life-long successful ladder-climbing in the bottom line corporate world--great training for thinking of humans as means to an end]

What if the Iraq turmoil is exactly going as planned, inasmuch as the long-term goal of theft of Iraq resources needs to be hidden by headlines that keep us focused on issues that hurt our hearts?  If you wanted to successfully pull off a big heist, having an on-going  multi-alarm fire is great cover!   I am saying that countries which want to steal territory and resources often can best get away with it by fostering continual conflict which gives them the time and cover for  their agenda of behind-the-scenes  below-the-headlines theft activities.  

I have been comtemplating this situation for some time and my new assumption about  Iraq warmongers being blithely theiving seems to fit with the Bush team's actions on the domestic agenda also.   Seems that whatever domestic policy would help average folks is usurped by policy to favor the already well-off 'like-minded' friends in the corporate/politico world.

Rod Nordland of Newsweek tries to be realistic and optimistic at the same time.  My understanding of Viet Nam(Barbara Tuchman), and Iraq(David Fromkin)leads me to believe that the long term mess in Iraq will be no greater if we pack up now and leave, or "stay the course".  We might also take into account our rising national debt, trade deficit, aging baby boomers, increasing dependence on foreign oil, at a time when the pessimists(I hope not realists) are predicting peak world oil production this year, the realists(relatively speaking), this decade, and the wild eyed optimists say we have 20 to 30 years.  If we stay the course without a draft you can kiss our ground troops goodbye fairly soon.  with a draft it will be a slow(er) meat grinder.  We will not have the baby boomers around to try to get us out of the $44trillion dollar abyss, and the Chineese will end up owning our asses.  Saving face in iraq is the least of our worries.  Lets not forget Global warming either. 

If you have read the PNAC document you know why we are in Iraq and why we intend to stay. What the document did not contemplate in advance is the reaction of the people (even those living in an oppressed society) wouldn't take kindly to being occupied.

So we told huge lies, and backed them with manufactured intelligence, and did the public dance of “Gee we want to negotiate” but Sadam just won't play.

All the Middle East experts were telling all who would listen that what we see now is what we were going to get. Nobody listened.

We ignored and then fired all military men who disagreed with the war plan. Your either with us or against us applied to everyone.

So here we are, in a war we cannot continue for much longer, never mind talking about winning. We do not have the manpower to keep up the force strength we now have on the ground for much longer.

We have destroyed the Volunteer Army , maybe forever. Young folks considered by some to be to dumb to be trained for good jobs are smart enough to know a stupid war entered into by lying politicians not a good reason to die.

If you support these crazy folk on this war , where will you draw the line? Do you back their weapons in space plan? Do you back their theory that using nukes first is a viable option? Do you believe in pre-emptive strikes? Do you believe in weapons systems that don't have a chance of working but we're spending billions on, while our troops in the field go without? Do you believe we are safer in a world that we have went out of the way to piss off.

It's time to bring these nutcases to task for their misdeeds to our country. They have committed treason from any point of view you wish to take. They need to be punished.

This is the logic that made it impossible for any president from 1956 to 1975 to get out of Vietnam. Millions of lives thrown away because no American government had the guts to say, Folks, we can gain nothing more here, and it's time to leave. Because that would lead quickly to a rather different assessment: Going in was a mistake, and all the Americans who died there died for nothing, and all the Vietnamese/Iraqis who died were killed by us for no good reason. 
In the case of Iraq, the real reason simply cannot be spoken out loud.
The longer this thing goes on, the less tenable is the Bush claim that we did this to save the Iraqis from Saddam. We have already far exceeded his death count, I would guess.
Which leaves what, exactly, as a rationale? —The truth: that we went in to secure Mideast oil supplies. And in that case, we have to stay, and all the deaths are to make sure everyone can afford to drive their cars to work.
The truth can be hard to swallow, but are pointless fantasies perferable?
We should get out now, but we won't get out for a long time. The government won't tell the truth, because the American people are not prepared to hear the truth. Which is why the government continues to lie.
We want the oil, but we don't want to know how we're paying for it.

Should happen. Won't.
The Democratic nominee in '08 should take exactly this position, but s/he won't.
I vote for you.