It's official. I've given up on it. There's no reason to be there. It's time to go.
For the past year I have patiently explained to anyone who asked why I really, honestly, was not yet ready to leave Iraq despite the clear mess it had become. You see, I felt that regardless of never supporting the invasion in the first place, we had an obligation to stay. And I knew that there would never be an elimination of the insurgency while we were there. I wasn't expecting to turn a corner, or that the insurgency was in its last throes. I wasn't blind. But, you see, the way I saw it, the only hope for any semblance of success or mid-east stability, which is of such supreme importance to our nation as to be worth fighting for, was that we could build up the political and social infrastructure enough, despite recurrent insurgent attacks, that when we left, the support for the insurgency would plummet, as the American presence was no longer there to feed it. And then, the government would be stable enough to fill the void, and we would advert a civil war.
But I'm through with Iraq.
I sympathised with those who thought it was senseless, and that there was no chance of success. In a way they were right. But, in my mind there was a reason to stay, to build up the political system. To act as a magnet for the insurgency as the Shittes and Sunnis figured out a way to coexist so that the largely Sunni insurgency would lose credibility and be absorbed into the system.
Enough is enough.
I know that I have been critical of the "leave now" crew. And I can't really apologize. I still feel it was worth trying. I still feel we had to stay, even if Bush was obviously unwilling and unable to change his policies to fit the changing climate. Even if the myopic justification for war crystallized before our eyes. Even if it cost more money then we had to spend. It was better than an Iranian ally on Iran's Western border. And I can now say in good faith, we stayed as long as we could. We tried to prevent the civil war.
But the war is here, and now it is time to go. There is nothing more to do there.
And I hope I don't fall into the category of flip-flopper or weak-kneed Dem who is trying to flank right. I hope I'm not DLC. Honesty, it was difficult to hold a position like mine in a crowd like this. And I wasn't appeasing anyone. I really believed. Not that there were weapons of mass destruction, or any other Administration line disproved by multiple fact. I really thought that there was a chance, if not doing something really remarkable (that chance died long ago), at least breaking even or leaving a functioning government. I weighed the pros. I weighed the cons. And, using nothing but realism and with a spirit of cynicism, decided that it was better to stay in 70% chaos for the near future than leave and guarantee 100% chaos for the forseeable future.
So when I say it is time to go, it is said with both a sense of disillusionment, and a sense of relief. Maybe the nightmare can be over, now that I can just accept that it's done. It's over. It's shit. Come home. And I still will not hold it against any politician for still believing, or for having believed, not in the lies, but in a practical solution. But the civil war, it changes everything. And surely, pragmatically, it is time for people like me to reconsider. Wasn't this the fear? Maybe I am premature. Maybe the violence will wane, and the civil war will be averted. But that is not what my heart says, and not what the paper says.
So, with deep regret and due respect, I am changing my mind.
I will from now on consider myself to be anti-war.
Thank you.