Representative John Murtha, a Democrat from Pennsylvania and a leading expert on defense issues, has called for a withdrawal of all American and Coalition forces from Iraq over the course of the next six months. Murtha, arguing that the Coalition has done all that can realistically be done in Iraq and that the Iraqi theater of orations is more "intense" than that in Vietnam where he served as a Marine Corps colonel, takes the position that there is little to be gained by remaining in Iraq for the foreseeable future. While there is no doubt that Murtha has made an important point about the difficulty of the American and Coalition goals in Iraq, it seems somewhat premature to assume that an early withdrawal would not have serious and potentially destabilizing consequences.
On the one hand, no casual observer of the nightly news can fail to recognize that the escalation of violence in Iraq that has occurred since the recent elections is damaging the Bush Administration's policy and continued insistence on remaining on the ground. Television news viewers and newspaper readers are treated to stories on a daily basis about terrorist attacks (some led by Syrian and other Middle Eastern groups who object to the presence of the U.S. in the region) and ethnic or religious conflicts between Iraq's Shi'ites and Sunnis and Kurds. American, Iraqi and Coalition troop lives are being lost almost daily and civil society has yet to be established to any meaningful degree, despite the elections and the new Iraqi Constitution. The war is costly in terms of human as well as economic capital, and many Americans see the Bush policy on Iraq as a failure.
At the same time, one must recognize that left to its own devices at this critical juncture, Iraq may lack the internal resources needed to create a stable government apparatus รป much less to overcome the internecine tensions that are dividing the Iraqi people. Restoration of vital services ...