Iraq: What Now?

I can't hear enough about the lead-up to the war in Iraq. It can't be talked about enough - dissected, analyzed, rehashed - what have you. But with the copious blame to go around - and there's plenty - it's now critical to determine what the next step should be.

It may be a harder question to answer if you had misgivings about the war in the first place. I wasn't stridently antiwar; like most Americans, I generally believed the President and the evidence presented by Secretary Powell but I questioned the timing. Once the war began, I didn't support it so much as resign myself to it.

And now, with so many dead and injured on both sides, with the burgeoning resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, with exploding anti-American hostilities, and with Iraq spiraling into a state of utter chaos regardless of whether the label "civil war" is applied, we desperately need leadership. We need answers and frank assessments of reality. Instead, we're given only rhetoric such as "cut and run" and "stay the course" that distill the debate into either/or platitudes that don't begin to capture the complexity of the decisions ahead.

Early word on the James Baker plan is that it rules out the prospect of victory in Iraq, but does provide several strategies that aren't simply "stay the course." I don't know whether President Bush will listen to the words of his father's adviser or not.

I do know that "stay the course" has failed and is no solution at all. Conversely, I don't necessarily advocate a phased withdrawal either; it's entirely likely that Iraq 2010 could become like Afghanistan 2000. Still, it seems the better of poor options. It's such a tragic situation.

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[JenInSC]

This comes from Facing South, a left-leaning political newsletter:
Percent of Southerners who believe the U.S. "should have stayed out of Iraq": 57
Percent of Southerners who are "very or somewhat proud" of the Iraq mission: 10
Percent who are "very sad" about it: 62
Percent who say they are "very sad" about it in other regions of the country: 56
Percent who said "zero" when asked how much additional money should be spent on the Iraq mission: 50
All sources on file at the Institute for Southern Studies