By Menzes Sweet


Could the war in Iraq end with the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces? Is this even a sane idea worth considering? Lately, in conversation with people on both sides of the war, I have found the common response is “No. It’s impossible to leave Iraq immediately. It’s not even worth discussing.”

Then, they shoot me a look as if to say “You naïve idiot. How can you even ask that question?” You’ve seen this, I’m sure: it’s the frowning, exasperated look that intellectually paralyzed people reserve for those with dangerous opinions.

These arm-chair warriors are not considering the war from a thoughtful or critical perspective. They seem generally to be regurgitating things they've heard pundits or politicians say. They indulge without examination the idea that wars can’t just stop, as if halting the war in Iraq were like trying to shut off gravity.

Of course, it is impossible to immediately withdraw from Iraq. But this is only true because of logistics: we cannot instantly remove all of our troops and materiel. We can however, immediately shift our thinking and begin the process of bringing our army home. And this is the right choice. This is the sea change true conservatives should be working toward.

Yet conservatives are not clamoring for withdrawal. This is deeply troubling. Too many so-called conservatives have adopted the ostrich approach to war—find a hole, bury your head and hope things pass over. They blindly support President Bush because he is also called a “conservative”. Even as Bush’s justifications for war have evaporated, many conservatives stand with him, rather than with the interests of the nation. This is cult-of-personality politics at its worst.

Recently, “conservative” commentator David Limbaugh, less-successful brother of Rush, wrote a column in which he encouraged conservatives to play ostrich. Limbaugh argues that because we thought we were right at the start of the war, we should just keep fighting.

“It's easy to blame President Bush for failing sufficiently to articulate his case for the war against Iraq, but he does have a nation to lead and a war to fight … Even if we conclude we were wrong to have attacked Iraq – which we certainly were not – our decision is done and can't be retracted, even by withdrawing.”

“Our decision is done and can’t be retracted.” What? That statement displays the kind of stubborn righteousness and failure of imagination that we cannot afford. It's like plantation owners trying to defend slavery by saying “it seemed like a good idea at the time so we’re sticking with it.” Such short-sighted inertia only leads to unnecessary bloodshed, sorrow and economic ruin.

What we have here is a lack of imagination. Republicans and Democrats have successfully shut themselves away and refused to entertain alternatives to the bone-crushing disaster in Iraq. They have convinced Americans that withdrawal is impossible, that it would equal failure and that it is unpatriotic and would send a bad message to the world.

From the conservative viewpoint, withdrawal from Iraq is patriotic: it conserves our national wealth (to be better spent on actually making us safe, which we are not); saves soldiers’ lives; disentangles us from a painful, syrupy conflagration; and frees us to focus on national problems, like the economy, environment, and immigration.

Withdrawal might sound selfish: those Iraqis suffered under a brutal dictator! But let’s not forget that we had the chance to remove Saddam long ago and refused because it was inconvenient. And let’s not forget that if we claim some moral high road and say that the Iraq war arrives under the American motto of “freedom for all!” then we’ve got a list of countries that will need wars, too, like North Korea, Sudan and China. That is, unless we want to be hypocrites in the eyes of the world.

To those who think withdrawal would equal defeat, I ask, What, exactly, is it that we have in Iraq now? That our armed forces cannot even protect the streets surrounding the Green Zone, that the commute from Baghdad Airport to the Green Zone is the deadliest 15-minute drive in the world, that suicide bombers routinely explode themselves and kill scores of civilians inside the capital? These are not the marks of victory. Nor are they the marks of progress.We are no safer than before, and many experts would argue that we are merely making things worse. Just because there hasn't been another 9/11 does not mean we have successfully jousted terrorists out of the contest.

And what of the so-called message withdrawal would send to the rest of the world? It puzzles me that the hawks should worry over this. In an era of drive-through regime change, we have proven we can reduce a nation to the stone-age with frightening speed. We have also proven that we are not very good at picking up the pieces. Our message to the world now seems to be: “Mess with us and we’ll flatten you. And since we suck at cleaning up, we’ll leave that the survivors.” This ridiculous neocon script will unfortunately stand in for our international message, at least for the remainder of Bush's term.

While on vacation, Bush took time out to suggest that the new reason for staying in Iraq is to honor what our dead soldiers died for and to support what living soldiers fight for. This is a foolish and misleading cause. Let us not confuse the issue of support for our countrymen with support for the dumb-ass expedition they were ordered into. If we truly wanted to honor and support our troops, we would think of them as part of our nation, not dogs in need of constant praise. And in doing what is best for the nation, we would bring our soldiers home in all haste.

Where is the vivid imagination that got us into war in the first place? Surely with such creative energy, our leaders can invent a strategy for pulling out of Iraq. They have already proven good at finding excuses and drawing up complicated plans. It’s time to shift that force into reverse.

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