I think it is urgent that the US not have invaded Iraq. We should do absolutely everything we can to prevent the United States from having invaded Iraq. But since the U.S. already did I think that the people who engineered that invasion should be brought before the World Court and hung for the crime of committing aggressive war. Just as after WWII the world needs to SEE that this is what happens to people who start wars. And I think the entire "conservative movement" machine with its corrupt DeLay/Norquist/Reed/Abramoff lobbying/funding should be dismantled and prosecuted and imprisoned. I think democracy demands this.
MORE below the fold.
That said, what do we do now? Iraq is really a no-win situation, for millions and millions of people. So looking at what should be done about Iraq I think we need to undertand that the reality is that none of us have any say over what
will happen. And another reality to consider:
Bush is getting ready to cut and run and retreat because
The Party sees a late-2006 "War is Over" announcement as a way to keep power.
Again -- anything you or I say should happen is not relevant to what will happen. It is simply blowing hot air into the wind and nothing more.
Consider the post-withdrawal phase of what happens in Iraq and the Middle East. Bush will never allow the right thing to happen. He will never allow the UN or Europe to step in and provide sufficient peacekeepers to keep the lid on -- if Bush's cronies can't have the oil they can't either.
Suppose full-scale civil war breaks out with hundreds of thousands killed. Suppose the Shiites wipe out the Sunnis with millions dead. Suppose Iran winds up in control of central Iraq and the southern oil fields and launches full-scale war against a weakened U.S. Suppose the Kurds break out for independence and Turkey invades? None of us know if these terrible things will happen or not. All of us understand these are possible, even likely.
Now, think about this. If any of those results of withdrawal do occur, there will be an all-out right-wing noise machine effort to pin blame on those now calling for leaving, even though they none of us have any say in what happens.
So considering that this is what's most likely to happen, and considering the potential consequences of the coming Bush withdrawal, doesn't it make a lot more sense to be demanding to see Bush's plan for success in Iraq than to be calling for us to just leave? It's a question Bush can't answer - because there is no answer. So let's pin it all on him instead of us.
In summary, what we should "do" is Blame Bush. It's the only thing we CAN do.