If the U.S. pulls out of Iraq now, we should never expect cooperation from citizens in any other country in assisting U.S. interests, because none of our promises to them will have any credibility.
If we leave Iraq in its current state, the civil war that is now being fought as an insurgency will erupt into a vicious civil war with mass retaliation against thousands of Iraqi moderates who have been cooperating with U.S. interests. The power vacuum in government will allow Al-Qaeda-backed insurgents to use Iraq and its vast oil resources as a staging ground and training center in support of the global Jihad against the U.S.
Conclusion - Call to Action:
The Iraq war was the worst setback against the War on Terror since its inception after the terrorist attacks of September 11th. It diverted the resources necessary to eliminate Al-Qaeda as a viable fighting force in Afghanistan and probably allowed Osama bin Laden and the top...
If the fact that the Iraq war was unjustified in the first
place is not relevant to this
debate, then the fact that, for whatever reason, the country is poised for collapse and/or all-out civil war now is equally irrelevant to weighing the balance of U.S. interests. The U.S.
economy is weak enough without a long-term continuation of the Iraqi occupation; no U.S. interest in Iraq is worth continued sacrifice of American lives there indefinitely; and until we exit Iraq, we will not be able to prosecute the War on Terror adequately to address the primary threat to American homeland security.
