Let's leave Iraq now (Pfaff / Guardian)

[struggle4progress]

William Pfaff
Friday January 7, 2005
The Observer

It clearly is time for Britain and the United States to leave Iraq. The coalition has entered a phase of profound confusion about what the intervention is supposed to accomplish, and greater confusion about the validity of the political and military means being employed.
The scheduled end-of-January election still offers a chance to leave on non-catastrophic terms. And it is probably the last chance. Yet the possibility this will be seized by Washington and London is negligible.

The alternative to leaving is bleak and bloody. Current public statements by senior American officials on how long coalition forces will remain vary from four years to another 10 years. At the beginning of December, George W Bush compared the situation to World War Two, and said that the war must go on until victory.

Senior coalition officials also admit that the situation is steadily deteriorating. Confusion about how long coalition troops should stay implies lack of agreement in Washington and London on what would make it possible for them to leave (short of Mr Bush's 'victory').

There is also no agreement as to why so many Iraqis are fighting to make the coalition leave. The agreed story for the Western public excludes the possibility that the insurgency is provoked by the occupation. <snip>

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1385301,00.html