All we can do, as Americans, is to get people relief from channels that aren't military, and to help as many refugees find asylum elsewhere.

Ali, do you really think we're going to be able to make this happen?

The media isn't even talking about that as an important American value!

How the hell do you expect to get this great idea circulating as an important debate issue in any less than 20 years?

Do you have a secret booking on Oprah that I don't know about?  Because a few books and newspaper editorials and blogs aren't gonna do it. 

I would keep in mind the neo-cons don't have the same definition of victory and defeat we do. If you have seen a bullet list from the current administration any where any time on what defines victory in Iraq I would love to see it.

In their mind victory just keeps getting better and better:

Their Prime Minister – Ehud Olmert – is obviously satisfied with the results. During his official visit to the United States on November 13th, he thanked Bush for the Mess on Potamia. “We in the Middle East have followed the American policy in Iraq for a long time, and we are very much impressed and encouraged by the stability which the great operation of America in Iraq brought to the Middle East.” 

To them the more f'ed up the better.

A very simpleminded analysis, long on bombast but short on facts. 

The only metric by which we're "losing" is opinion polls.  The regime has been removed and a government established.   Iraq has gone from being ranked as one of the least free to being one of the most free countries in the Mideast, both politically and economically.  We've successfully held three elections, each with larger turnout.  Militarily, the insurgents can't even mount an attack larger than platoon size anymore, and they hold no cities (remember the sieges of Fallujah and Najaf?).  There are now 325,000 ISF and more every day, and are expected to take over the fight within a few years. 

Yes, there is violence in Iraq.  The ignorant or defeatist may confuse this with failure, but the fact is Iraq has been more violent than this for decades, it just didn't make the headlines because it wasn't a political hot potato in the West.  Remember, they are still pulling people out of mass graves all over Iraq.

A very simpleminded analysis, long on bombast but short on facts. 

With apologies to the doomsayers, the only metric by which we're "losing" is opinion polls.  The regime has been removed and a government established.   Iraq has gone from being ranked as one of the least free to being one of the most free countries in the Mideast, both politically and economically.  We've successfully held three elections, each with larger turnout.  Militarily, the insurgents can't even mount an attack larger than platoon size anymore, and they now hold no cities (remember the sieges of Fallujah and Najaf?).  There are now 325,000 ISF and more every day, they fight next to U.S. troops on more than half of missions, and they are expected to take over the fight within a few years.  All those trends are favorable.

Yes, there is violence in Iraq, and it has gotten worse in the Sunni areas, where the displaced minority elite still resent the end of their brutal, profitable reign.  That violence may continue a generation or more; it's really up to them.  The ignorant or defeatist may confuse this with failure, but the fact is Iraq has been more violent than this for decades, it just didn't make the headlines because it wasn't a political hot potato in the West.  Remember, they are still pulling people out of mass graves all over Iraq.

We can't control whether people choose to be violent, but we can shape the outcome so the relatively moderate democrats come out in charge and not the outright thugs.

All we can do, as Americans, is to get people relief from channels that aren't military, and to help as many refugees find asylum elsewhere. 

Hypothetically, in my fantasy world where they consulted unimportant middle-aged women on policy decisions I'd say first of all we need to negotiate with our dear friends in Saudi to take in as many Sunni refugees as possible.  Same thing with any other country in the region that we have any chance of negotiating with at all for whichever sect predominates in that country. 

Next, the administration is crying (now, finally) that we need a larger military.  Obviously they are not getting recruits from the US population and they are now contemplating recruiting from other countries with the offer of an expedited "path to citizenship".  Okay.  Recruit Iraqis.  Join up and your family gets resident status while you serve, assuming you serve well or if you are killed or injured while in service...you all get citizenship while retaining Iraqi citizenship. 

Screen and process as many Iraqis as quickly as possible for resident visas.  We owe them that. 

Clean the mess up.  Many citizens will choose to return to their home country, many won't.  It doesn't matter...more would be alive.

Okay, sounds crazy but getting non-combatants out of the way is really the only way to do anything effective AND salvage a little decency out of this mess.   We have the resources to do this.  It wouldn't be perfect, it also would not be worse than what exists now.  Certainly there would be risks but what does not entail risks?  Hiding under our beds?

Of course we aren't likely to do any of the above and I'm clearly insane for even contemplating this.  We will continue to muddle along piling up bodies until we decide to bail out.

Yes, yes, yes. Less than a year after finally forming a democratically elected government under a Constitution the Iraqis wrote themselves, all is lost in Iraq.

Whatever. Just another handwringer who stupidly thought that we'd have utopia, and is now "disillusioned" because he was never an adult about these things in the first place.

The man obviously knows nothing of the history of war, of the history of large-scale occupations, or the history of democracy itself.  So by dint of that, he feels free to bash anyone who dares disagree with his bullshit--and better, to describe all who would disagree with him as nerds working in their basements, as opposed to, y'know, countless people who've actually served over there who still don't agree with him.

What a gutless, spineless, racist, colonialist, imperialist, and utterly inhuman thing it would be to leave Iraq now. And please, make no mistake about it, that's exactly what this series of "excellent" posts you're so enthralled with amount to, Ali. Did you even catch it? He's suggesting openly that the Iraqis are just to primitive and barbaric to handle democracy and that only "utopianism" made us think they were intelligent and civil enough to ever handle it--because, less than a year after forming their first democratic government, parts of the country are still violent (never mind that most of the country isn't and that the evil fascist "insurgency" is weaker than ever). And he's arguing not that we just abandon these Muslim savages who are incapable of civilized behavior, he's also suggesting, quite openly, that in future in that country we won't bother to try to do anything except drop munitions out of bombers, slaughtering far more than we ever do now. 

One thing about the defeatists is this: they never change their spots. Yes, yes, every few months yet another handwringer leaves and declares himself disillusioned. Well the disillusioned were stupid idiots in the first place, and invariably what they recommend will result in far more death and oppression.

Applaud all you want. Death and racism are what you're applauding.

it was always arrogance to think that the united states was going to be able to go in and enforce its political will upon iraq by military means.  the soviets, who presumeably were much less concerned about human rights violations, etc than the u.s. military, was unable to do so in afghanistan, but somehow, miraculously the united states was going to do so in iraq??  we couldnt do it in viet nam.....but great here we are again??  we couldn't do it in korea...but by all means, let's try again!

and the continued arrogance that thinks one can install western liberal democracy as the new world-wide faith, the new crusade at gunpoint, even in the face of overwhelming opposition just goes to show that it is an agenda that it being pushed by fanatics who never had much concern for the human cost.

i am not totally convinced that withdrawing from iraq is the best idea, but i think it is pretty delusional to think that the united states can do anything more than continue to prop up a regime with no future on its own.  civil war was always where this heading and nothing but political naivete stopped people from seeing it.

and yes, i think "liberal humanism" is another word for political naivete.  liberal humanism = the belief that somehow there are timeless liberal and humanistic values that will be enthusiastically embraced by everyone if they were just given the chance.  it is a faith that is absurd and flies in the face of a long human history which shows that liberal governments are things that arose at a very specific time and place.  maybe they will arise elsewhere as history moves on, but they cannot be imposed.