The United States should immediately withdraw from Iraq.

GENERALITIES: Before I delve into the specifics of this issue, I'd first like to establish how it ought to be addressed. In one of the Republican debates, Mike Huckabee likened the USA's invasion of Iraq to breaking something in a store. To paraphrase him, "We broke it, so we bought it." Flyaway echoes this point when she states that "as the instigators of this conflict, the United States should remain in Iraq until the job is done." This argument, while it appeals to morals and sentiments we all can understand, should not be given credence. Every American with a trace of compassion in his/her heart grieves for the suffering and destruction our invasion has caused and wants badly for Iraq to be stable and safe. That is not controversial. The real debate, I submit, ought to be about what is best for Iraq, the USA and the rest of the world. In other words, it all comes down to a cost-benefit analysis. Huckabee's oversimplified analogy can hold water only if our continued presence in Iraq will produce a greater net benefit than withdrawal. We should ignore our moral gut reaction if a sober, logical analysis of the situation shows our gut reaction to be foolhardy. So all that matters in the end is the analysis. If this approach comes off as cold-hearted to you, one further point needs to be made about Huckabee's argument. Who is "we?" The American people didn't break Iraq, and certainly our soldiers shouldn't be blamed because they had to follow orders. The moral responsibility for the war rests solely on those who planned and authorized it. 99.9999% of the public had no say in this matter, so we shouldn't feel personally responsible. At the very least, one has to admit that there are limits to how much the American public should sacrifice to help clean up a mess for which they bear no responsibility. SPECIFICS: First, I'll condense your arguments (fairly, I hope): 1) The surge has reduced violence. 2) The Iraqi government is currently too fragile. If we leave, it will collapse and chaos will ensue. 3) Leaving Iraq will endanger the USA because the radical islamists will follow us home. 4) Furthermore, if we leave, other countries like Russia could move in and coopt the country. 5) The invasion was justified because Saddam was violating UN resolutions. My responses: 1) It's worth noting that 2007 was the most violent year yet in Iraq, and the recent reduction in violence is on a par with (I believe) 2005 levels, not necessarily a glorious achievement. That said, it isn't surprising that tens of thousands of extra troops have caused a reduction in violence. It is impossible to know, however, how long it will last. One huge problem with the Bush Administration's anti-terrorism policy is that it has no empirical basis. As Santayana said, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. An intelligent president would challenge his personal assumptions about the mindset of terrorists by reading up on academic studies of the topic. I'll talk more about this in 3), but at this point, I'd like to pose this question: how many successful revolutions can you name in which there was not popular support? Maybe it's because I wasn't a history major, but I can't think of any. It seems logical to suggest that the only way a country can successfully cast off a tyrannical leader is for its people to put aside their differences and work towards the common good. Since invading Iraq, we have seen the polar opposite of this. The Sunnis and Shia are trapped in a cycle of violence and revenge and are further fueled by the new presence of Al Qaeda (courtesy of our toppling Saddam). 2) and 4): There's a big difference between withdrawing from Iraq and leaving the Iraqis high and dry. I think a multilateral force (i.e. not just the USA) could certainly help maintain stability and prevent a malevolent neighbor from wresting power. It's also likely that merely announcing our intention to withdraw will provide a significant shot in the arm to the seriousness with which the Iraqis unite and solidify their government. 3) There is zero evidence for this and doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Wouldn't we be safer if our soldiers were here, defending the USA, then across the ocean, patrolling Iraq? If terrorists want to attack the US, why would our decision to leave affect them? I actually have a response to that question; our leaving Iraq would affect the terrorists' decision-making, but its effect would be the opposite of what you predict. Going back to the anti-intellectual policies of the administration, academia tells us that the leading cause of suicide terrorism is military occupation by a military of a predominantly different religion. Robert Pape, a professor at the University of Chicago who is frequently called upon by the military and CIA as a terrorism expert, created a database of every terrorist act in the past 100 years (that is to say essentially every terrorist act). His conclusion: military occupation where the occupied country's main religion is different than the occupiers' makes it TEN times more likely that suicide terrorism will ensue. This is not an exclusively Muslim-Christian phenomenon; there have been Sikh-Hindu and Buddhist-Hindu cases as well. For details, listen to this interview: http://www.antiwar.com... In addition, Michael Scheuer, the former chief of the Osama Bin Laden tracking unit in the CIA, makes the same point. People resent being occupied. Seriously consider what it's like to be occupied by another country. It doesn't turn most people into terrorists, just the most radical ones, but it pisses everybody off. Anyway, you can't dismiss either of these experts as partisan or ignorant. They are seriously worth listening to. 5) Didn't you say "the debate is no longer over whether the invasion was justified or not?" This thing is getting long enough as it is, so if you want to debate this, I'll address it in my next argument. FINALLY: In order to perform a good cost-benefit analysis, one must very seriously consider the enormous costs this war is imposing on us. About 4,000 American soldiers have died, around the same death toll as 9/11. 28,711 American soldiers have been wounded. This isn't just bruises and scraped knees; it's dismemberment and disfiguration, horrendously tragic (see: http://www.antiwar.com...). Furthermore, untold tens of thousands have post-traumatic stress disorder and will be thusly scarred for life. And this is only Americans. Many more Iraqis than Americans have been killed, wounded, and scarred for life. Additionally, this war imposes enormous economic costs. We borrow 2-3 billion dollars every day from China to finance it. We're spending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas, dollars that could be used for health care or improving out schools or building levies that won't break. And the saddest part is that this wrongheaded foreign policy could be stopped in its tracks if Bush were a little less smug and picked up a book for a change. If this war is mainly about preventing terrorism, it is vital that we realize that our occupation of countries poses a far greater threat to us than islamofascism. While blaming an ideological bogeyman is easy and provides emotional clarity, it can be disastrous if, as is so often the case, reality is more nuanced.