US and UK look for early way out of Iraq

[Donald L.]

US and UK look for early way out of Iraq (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1396221,00.html)

Private memos are circulating in Washington, Baghdad and London setting out detailed scenarios for withdrawal of US and British forces from Iraq as early as possible, a Foreign Office source said yesterday.

The policy papers have added urgency because a new Iraq government, to be elected next week if the election goes ahead on January 30 as planned, could set a target date for withdrawal.

[DaveC]

If they pull out of Iraq now it's going to make Saddam's rule look like a cakewalk in terms of casualties. Considering that most of the PR speak out of the Whitehouse and 10 Downing St. is making it sound like everything is roses democracy wise in Iraq, I'd say they'll try to pull out most everyone before the end of the year. Which will leave a nice tasty power vaccum for more extremists to step in the way the Taliban did.

[BrewersDroop]

'Mission Accomplished'.

[Bren]

Would it be reaching to draw a "desertion" analogy here?

[Anders Hallin]

I'm already looking forward to the "well, I guess the Iraqi people didn't want democracy, we did all we can"-choir from the apologist choir (not meaning anyone here, I think).

[shift6]

Wait wait wait, let me see if I am getting this right. The US/UK are building a plan so that if instructed they can leave in a timely, agreeable fashion, and no one here can acknowledge that they'd be doing the right thing? Should they not plan to do it and then, if asked, we could all berate them for not having an exit plan (the way they didn't really have a peace plan)?

Once again. No matter what they do, they're wrong in QT3's eyes.

[DaveC]

No, that's not what I am saying. I am saying that since the coalition started this war they have to finish it. After all the US and Britain had a hand in creating Iraq to begin with and I'm not just talking about the modern Hussein regime. The pressure to pull out is immense and I can understand why they would want to considering the bad news that seems to come out every other day. The only way to have this whole mess finish properly is to make sure a stable, sustainable government is in place.

[Anders Hallin]

Wait wait wait, let me see if I am getting this right. The US/UK are building a plan so that if instructed they can leave in a timely, agreeable fashion, and no one here can acknowledge that they'd be doing the right thing? Should they not plan to do it and then, if asked, we could all berate them for not having an exit plan (the way they didn't really have a peace plan)?
Instructed to leave by whatever government will be *ahem* elected in the coming elections? Since I don't believe holding an election is the right thing to do for the Iraqi people at this time, no, I don't believe using that as an excuse to pull out is the right thing to do, either.

[Jason McCullough]

But then again, it's not like the current crowd of yahoos has any hope of figuring it out, so it's more the hypcritical angle of them pretending they're going to stay "as long as it takes" when really they're just looking for Nixon's Decent Interval, 2.0.

[Brian Rucker]

Anders: This is one of those situations that no matter what we do, we're fucked. If you don't hold the elections the Shiite community will be outraged and think we're up to something. They want elections now so they can take over, period. Hold the elections, and the Sunni are inevitably going to get cut out of power and that throws more support behind the insurgents (who'd probably be getting more support as well if they managed to delay the elections).

I say do it, there's really no choice, and try to fix it along the way as much as you can. If we piss off Sistani it's game over.