I never supported the invasion of Iraq. I'm no pacifist, but it should have been apparent to all but the most raving megalomaniac hawk that this was the wrong action on so many levels.
However, I went along with the judgement of Howard Dean (and many others) that once we were in, we had to "finish the job".
I've changed my mind.
I think I'm a pretty pragmatic person. We should make general goals, figure out a way to get to those goals, and if the first way doesn't work, find another way.
Now unfortunately, I think unless your name is George Bush or Dick Cheney, there was nothing any of us could have done to stop the invasion of Iraq. Once there, however, there were a number of things that could have happened and a number of ways events could have been handled.
What's the general goal? The lofty one would be to have a democratic capitalist paradise in Iraq with free flowing oil. The pragmatic one might have been to leave it no worse off than how we found it. Now the goal seems to be avoiding turning it into a murky killing field terrorist haven civil war torn wreck. All worthy enough goals.
But how can we achieve them? I've come to the conclusion that the U.S.--in its current situation and under its current leadership cannot achieve those goals--is simply not competent enough and doesn't have the right kind of "equipment" to achieve them--and as bad as the prospect of the murky killing field terrorist haven is, I'm not sure the U.S. can get around it. It seems to me people will still be killed--the U.S. will either keep having to bomb mosques or we will leave and factions will start killing each other. And has the U.S. presence been effective in stopping the assassination of intellectuals or the suicide bombs? No.
If I had some reasonable expectation that the U.S. presence had a net positive effect, I would say that cutting and running was not responsible foreign policy. However, I'm starting to think that our presence is only making things worse. So--nobody wants us there--and nobody wants to be there...let's just get out now.