We should leave Iraq ASAP! Agreed?

I agree. Here is the case from two different CONSERVATIVE standpoints:

1) Our continued presence in Iraq is serving as a recruiting tool for al-Qaeda. A recent National Intelligence Estimate found that the U.S. presence in Iraq has had a “rejuvenating” effect on the terrorist group. Proponents of the surge say that we are achieving victory. However, even if the level of our troops being killed has declined, they are still being targeted and the Iraqi government is no closer to stability, meaning that the violence will continue.

While we keep our focus on Iraq indefinitely, bin Laden remains free to plot his next attack, and can continue to portray us as occupiers and recruit more volunteers to his cause. Shortly after 9/11, I voted for the authorization to go into Afghanistan because it told the president to do what he already had the authority to do: go after the ones who directly hit us. I was extremely disappointed that the mission there changed to one of nation-building.

Military experts, including Generals Barry McCaffrey and John Batiste, have sounded the warning that our military is stretched so thin because of Iraq and our other commitments that, as General Batiste put it recently, “our Army and Marine Corps are at a breaking point with little to show for it.” A weakened and over-committed military is a recipe for a national security disaster. Meanwhile, Washington continues to talk about how many other countries it could send troops to.

As if a national debt topping $9 trillion is not bad enough, each day this war is fought, deficit spending increases. To avoid raising taxes and the subsequent anger that would follow come election time, the federal government will continue to borrow money from countries like Saudi Arabia and China, making your children and grandchildren’s futures dependent on the actions of other nations and selling out our national security to the highest bidder.

Make no mistake, as Congress spends more and more, there will be less and less to fund Social Security and Medicare, the programs Washington has made us dependent on, without a massive tax increase. Meanwhile, bin Laden proclaims that our falling dollar is a sign that al-Qaeda’s “bleed-until-bankruptcy plan” is working.

2) In the second week in April, the world’s most elaborate kabuki theater, Washington, offered a stunning performance. America’s two consuls for Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan C. Crocker, gave Congress and the world their appreciation of the situation in that unhappy country. Senators and congressmen listened with rapt attention. The three presidential candidates, aka the three blind mice, postured and preened in the great men’s presence. The press hung on every word. Analysts and columnists parsed their meaning.

As with theater, none of it was real.

Both Crocker and Petraeus spoke of Iraq as if it were a state. Crocker referred to “The passage of the 2008 [Iraqi] budget, with record amounts for capital expenditures, [which] ensures that the federal and provincial governments will have the resources for public spending.” He spoke of “the development of Iraq’s Council of Representatives as a national institution.” He cautioned that “there is still very much to be done to bring full government control to the streets of Basra.” In a similar vein, General Petraeus repeatedly referred to Iraqi Security Forces, noting, “An increasingly robust Iraqi-run training base enabled the Iraqi Security Forces to grow by over 3,000 soldiers and police over the past 16 months.” He assured Congress, “Iraq’s security ministries are steadily improving their ability to execute their budgets.”

The members of the Senate and House committees before whom the consuls testified played their parts in turn. They questioned the witnesses carefully, as committee members usually do, within the framework of their statements. No one seems to have inquired whether that framework exists, other than as a beautiful dream.

Beautiful dreams are the stuff of theater, but strategy must be based in the real world.

The defining reality in Iraq is that there is no state. Because there is no state in Iraq, there is also no government. Orders issued in Baghdad have no impact because there are no state institutions to carry them out. Government institutions such as parliament and positions such as cabinet minister have no substance. Power comes from having a relationship with a militia, not a government office. The “Iraqi Security Forces” are groups of Shi’ite militias, which exist to fight other militias. They take orders from militia leaders, not the government. Government revenues are slush funds for militia leaders to pay their militiamen. The whole edifice Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus described exists only as a figment of the Bush administration’s imagination.

Couldn’t a single member of Congress have found the courage to say, “Excuse me, consul, but you have no clothes”?

Ironically the reality behind the kabuki was revealed even as the show went on, in the Iraqi city of Basra. There, Iraqi “Prime Minister” Nouri al-Maliki impulsively ordered an offensive by the Iraqi “army” against the Mahdi Army militia of Muqtada al-Sadr. In effect, he tried to act like the head of a real state. Since he isn’t, the result was a fiasco. The Iraqi “army” fell apart, as militias usually do when given unwelcome orders. Iraqi “soldiers” and “police” went over or went home, in considerable numbers. Reportedly, the fight ended with the Mahdi Army controlling more of Basra than it did at the beginning. Mr. al-Maliki, desperate for a ceasefire, had to agree in advance to any conditions al-Sadr wanted to impose.

At root, the problem here is one conservatives have traditionally been sensitive to, namely the meaning of words. “Government,” “parliament,” “army,” and “police” only have meaning in the context of a state. Where there is no state, the words have no meaning. Statements such as those given to Congress and the American public by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker become what logical positivists call pseudo-statements.

In answer to a question before one of the committees, General Petraeus gave a particularly vivid example of how words disconnected from reality can deceive. (In this case the deception is no doubt self-deception.) He said, “We’ve got to continue. We have our teeth into the jugular, and we need to keep it [sic] there.” In a column in the April 13 Washington Post, David Broder wrote, “The general clearly likes that phrase, because he used it twice more during his visit to The Post.”

In Fourth Generation war, non-state opponents, such as those we face in Iraq and Afghanistan, have no jugular. They have no single point of vulnerability an opponent can hit to bring them down. (They may have such critical vulnerabilities internally, but only they can hit them, as al-Qaeda in Iraq seems to have done in alienating its Sunni base.) For outside forces such as ourselves, Fourth Generation war is war of the capillaries. What we have our teeth into in Iraq is a jellyfish.

The card castle of illusions that is built when meaningless words are used becomes a base for poor strategic decisions. That reality, too, revealed itself as the kabuki played on in Washington. The failure of Mr. al-Maliki’s “big push” into Basra presented American forces in Iraq with a problem. To win, we must see a state re-emerge. That means we should stay out of the way of anyone with the potential to re-create a state. Muqtada al-Sadr is at or near the head of that list. The al-Maliki “government” isn’t even on it.

So what did we do? We went to war against al-Sadr on behalf of al-Maliki, of course. Our military leadership cannot grasp one of the most basic facts about Fourth Generation war, namely that the splintering of factions makes it more difficult to generate a state. Should we have the bad luck to destroy the Madhi Army and thereby “win” this fight—which continues with the usual mindless and counterproductive airstrikes on Basra and Sadr City in Baghdad—we will move not toward but farther away from seeing a state re-emerge in Iraq.

Nor will faulty strategy remain confined to Iraq. Faced with the contradiction between the beautiful dream of a new Iraqi state and the reality on the ground, the Bush administration has turned to an old explanation: the devil is doing it. As Petraeus and Crocker repeatedly told Congress, the devil is Iran.

The violence of Petraeus’s language is at times striking. Speaking of the Shi’ite militias that dared oppose our recent offensive against them—the buzzword for them is Special Groups—Petraeus said “the flame-up also highlighted the destructive role Iran has played in funding, training, arming, and directing the so-called Special Groups. … Unchecked, the Special Groups pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq.” The wanted posters for Osama bin Laden, it seems, are being pasted over with ones for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Always better to go after someone you can bomb than someone you can’t find.

Petraeus did not just mention Iran once and pass on. The theme of Iran perfide came up again and again:

Iran has fueled the violence [in Iraq] in a particularly damaging way. … Together with the Iraqi Security Forces, we have also focused on the Special Groups. These elements are funded, trained, armed, and directed by Iran’s Qods Force. … It was these groups that launched Iranian rockets and mortar rounds at Iraq’s seat of government. … External actors, like Iran, could stoke violence in Iraq. …A failed state in Iraq would pose serious consequences … for the effort to counter malign Iranian influence. … It is clearly in our national interest … to help Iraq resist Iranian encroachment on

I agree. I think the war on terror is a joke. Seriously, are you afraid of terrorists? I sure as hell am not. It really does not matter when we leave Iraq because those terrorists will just wait it out. They will never go away. There is only one solution to this Islamic jihad terror war. Leaders of these Islamic extremist groups would have to denounce terrorism. Until that day comes there will always be terrorists and the threat of taking control in Iraq. So, unless we plan on dealing with reality, and that being the extremist leaders will never denounce terrorism, then we might as well leave ASAP and get ready for the inevitable. That being either a civil war in Iraq or Iran or some terror group(s) taking over. It's going to happen. But seriously the only way for it to end is through the extremists themselves.

No, why surrender when we are winning? In terms of percent of GDP and the cost in lives this war is way cheapter than VietNam and winning it is in our strategic interest. Have you not read that May was the all time lowest month for U.S. casualties?

None of us want to see our kids die, between my nephews (one there now) and son, our family is in our 5th tour there. Do not make that sacrifice in vain by chanting get out now just because it is fashionable with the MTV generation.

If terrorists want to come there to get killed let 'em, hell, buy 'em bus fare. It isn't a recruiting ground for terrorists, it's a burial ground for them.

A stable democracy in Iraq will keep Iran in line and possibly lead to more freedoms in Saudi so the royal family won't get kicked out. Together that equals Stability.

It's time the Decomcrats showed some balls instead of just playing politics at the expense of our service men and women.

NO honey, we can't leave asap. For the record, im Not in favor of this war, However, u cant just back out of a fight once uve started. Leaving asap would kinda be like ripping the bandaid of a blood gushing wound... gotta repair and heal it. smh U gotta remember we're fighting extremists here. theyll blow up their mama's house if they think some americans are inside lol. That being said, whats done is done, and now we have to Diffuse the situation strategically and carefully for the safety of everyone. Also, every Iraqi citizen is Not at war with us. Many of them want and deserve some relief and they're depending on us to help them get it. We cant just storm in there, stir up the pot, then leave them hangin to make it out the best way they can. Unfortunately, we're waist deep in this mess and we gotta end it the right way.

Your position is completely out of date and in some alternate universe.

You're stuck in the past and the situation has moved on.

The lead editorial in the Washington Post on 6/1/08 urged Obama to acknowledge the NEW REALITY that the US-backed Iraqi government is WINNING and that he should stop talking about withdrawal and start planning for SUCCESS in Iraq.

This is from the POST, which has been staunchly anti-Iraq war and very pro-Obama.

Dig it out and read it.

Time to re-educate yourself to the new facts on the ground in Iraq.

The Iraqis are winning their own war now and the US can't let them down.

ASAP isn't fast enough.

On the other hand - and it doesn't justify our presence there for a minute - when you're the only superpower, being the world's cop kind of comes with the territory, unfortunately. It's always been that way.

Yes. Iraq didn't do anything to anyone, let alone threaten the west.

I agree with you on your other point too. That "then they'll come to us" argument is invalid. The biggest threat for the American and British citizens are the US and British governments.

True on all counts. If terrorists wanted to attack America again, how is having troops overseas helping? If the troops were back home, at least we'd have the National Guard and such to respond to basic emergencies.

I agree.

"Those who say it will be a mess when we leave are the same ones who said it would be a cakewalk when we came in. Why should we listen to them?"

"To say it will be a mess if we leave implies the improbable that it would not be a mess if we stay."

Ron Paul

(from memory - a word or two might be wrong.)

Yes i agree

We are just creating terrorism-Yes we should leave ASAP.