JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY: After Iraq elections, U.S. should pull out

[struggle4progress]

January 10, 2005




BY JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY

There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there may be only one good way out of the deepening disaster that is Iraq: Hold the elections on Jan. 30, declare victory and begin leaving.

Anything less, any more "staying the course," and we're likely doomed to an even bloodier and more costly defeat in a country divided along ethnic and religious fault lines and headed toward civil war.

A large number of Americans, perhaps even a majority, believe that pulling out now would lead to an American defeat that undermines U.S. credibility and endangers the global war on terrorism. They worry it would create either an Afghan-style terrorist haven in Iraq or an anti-American Shiite regime that would only be a new source of instability in the Mideast, a region vital to American interests.

The problem is that there is no way we can win -- defeat the insurgents and install a stable, democratic, friendly government -- and bad things are going to happen anyway. There is no way Americans are willing to pay the price even of stalemate, never mind an unattainable victory. <snip>

http://www.freep.com/voices/columnists/egalloway10e_20050110.htm

[Malva Zebrina]

1. Once they get those elections, everything and anything that

happens can be blamed on the iraqi people.


Better believe that is the game plan.