Leaving Iraq?

I see in the news that some 24 Wisconsin towns, in a non-binding referendum, voted that the US should withdraw its troops from Iraq immediately. This vote was conducted as part of a sense of the people initiative to give ordinary folks the chance to voice their opinion on the war.

The result is not surprising. I doubt that any serious (that is, backed by money) effort to get out a support the war vote occurred, since the vote itself was a meaningless exercise. (Kind of like this blog is a meaningless exercise.) National polls also show that ever increasing majorities of Americans feel the war is not going well, that there is no exit strategy, that there is little hope for success--measured in reduced violence, increased security, increased stability, and a rebuilt (or rebuilding) Iraq--and that the US is losing people to no good purpose.

I was never really comfortable with the war. I'm not comfortable with the notion of preemptive war unless the threat is clear AND present AND immediate; none of those conditions was fully met in the run-up to the war. And all of the rationales for the war given by the President and his administration before the war turned out not to be based in fact. At best, we acted too hastily on questionable intelligence and without a clear plan for the post invasion period.

Yet, I do not favor pulling out. We created this situation, and we need to find a way to fix it. Pulling out will not fix anything in Iraq, in the Middle East, or in the world in general. Too many nations and groups whose interests are antithetical to our own legitimate national interests will consider a precipitous pullout as yet another sign of the intrinsic weakness of the American system. A pullout will give them comfort that if they are just patient enough they can counter US military power. It happened in Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia, and they believe it will happen again in Iraq. Because Iraq is a mess that will take a long time, and more bloodshed, to clean up.

What is missing from this war, and what has been missing from all of America's conflicts since the end of WWII, is a sense that the American people have something at stake personally. This war does not touch the average American in any way other than news about it. The average American doesn't know anyone serving in the military, isn't worried about having the war come home to them in any way, and doesn't have to sacrifice anything immediate and tangible to the war effort. We have no rationing; we make no budgetary sacrifices; there are no rallies or parades. Nothing is really done to get the people involved.

Ask any American what he or she can do for the war effort, and I'm sure the answer is either "I don't know" or "nothing." Even those opposed to the war have no tools to effect change in policy. Yet we risk making the world less safe is we leave Iraq now. We give comfort and hope to Al Qaeda, North Korea, Iran, anybody who opposes us and hates us if we leave. And we put additional fear in the hearts of those who look to us for their defense that we really won't be there for them in a crunch.

And, finally, speaking as a Vietnam Veteran, who went through the pain of having his country turn their back on the sacrifices his generation made, in America's name and at America's command, we cannot do that to the men and women serving today or to the memory of their fallen comrades. We asked them to undertake this war. In the last election for President, we supported the politicians who sent them in our name. We cannot honor their sacrifices by leaving until the job is done. Not again. We must get effective leadership for our military, an effective plan for successfully ending the conflict and bringing peace to Iraq, and effective execution of that plan.

To do less is to hasten the day when we need our military to protect us, but our military says they won't go because they no longer trust us with their lives.