'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

CSM column on need for rapid troop withdrawal

Here is my column in Thursday's CSM calling for a rapid withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. (I also warn there that various catastrophic scenarios in Iraq are very possible.)

Here's how it starts:

When President George W. Bush and his advisers launched the invasion of Iraq, they promised that this project was intended not only to find and destroy the "weapons of mass destruction" that they claimed were there, but also to remove Saddam Hussein and bring good governance to Iraq's 26 million people.

Now, some three-plus years later, it is clear that this latter project has failed. (And there were no WMDs to be found.)

Indeed, Mr. Bush's good-governance project in Iraq has failed so miserably that it cannot now be revived...

In March 2003, Bush launched a big roll of the geopolitical dice when he invaded Iraq. The stakes were very high. But now it is crystal clear that he "lost" that bet. Far better to cut the nation's losses now and shift to rebuilding a decent relationship with the rest of the world, than to sit idly by in Iraq waiting for what can only be a further deterioration of the situation.

How capable are the Bushites-- and the US citizenry as a whole-- of coming to terms with the new geopolitical realities, I wonder?