Don't Forget the Bloodletting in Iraq

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20060717/cm_thenation/7102347

The Nation -- With the Middle East on the cusp of war, President Bush's foreign policy for the area--remaking the region through invasion and occupation--is now effectively buried under the rubble of bombed out buildings, decimated bridges and civilian bodies.

The ongoing sectarian carnage in Iraq now barely makes it onto the front pages--and television is filled with the latest, horrifying scenes of devastation from the region. But Jessica Stern's op-ed, in Saturday's New York Times, is a powerful reminder of why we must not lose sight of ending the US occupation of a ravaged Iraq. Stern, a leading expert on terrorism, argues that our continuing occupation--and the growing number of revelations of US military atrocities (which she points out "are likely to proliferate the longer we remain in Iraq") will vastly increase the pool from which Al Qaeda and its sympathizers can recruit new members and supporters. As she reports, the latest Al-Qaeda video "tries to recruit ordinary American Muslims who might be offended, as many ordinary Americans are, by America's mistakes and moral failings in carrying out the war on terrorists." What Stern is saying is that this Administration's policies are actually increasing the possibility of future terrorist acts here in the US.

Yes, Iraq is complicated. As Robert Kuttner wrote recently in the Boston Globe, "..the search for a viable Iraq policy is really hard. President Bush has left the country with a policy problem from hell that may be literally insoluble, for him or anyone else." I agree, but at the same time that view should not lend a kind of gloss of acceptance to continued occupation.