Getting Out Of Iraq -- A Plan

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday June 28, 2005 · 6:57 AM PDT

2005/06/28 · 06:57

The discussion on Kos' thread on How Democrats Need To Start Talking About Iraq has been very interesting.

Two themes that show up, over and over, are the need for the War Democrats to be like Walter "Freedom Fries" Jones and admit that they were wrong about backing Bush on Iraq, and the need for a planned withdrawal from Iraq.

Here's the start of a plan. (More after the bump.)

There are actually lots of plans for a withdrawal from Iraq. The difficult part is going to be implementing them -- and unless something really drastic happens in the next six months (such as BushCo doing something to piss off their true constituencies in the corporate world and corporate media), I can't see Congress flouting Bush's will on this -- not, at least, until 2006; if the Republicans lose both Houses, those that are left will be much more likely to oppose Bush on this.

But that doesn't mean we can't be preparing the groundwork.

Henry Waxman, D-CA, is already working to do so, with his hearings into war profiteering. They won't have any immediate effect, but they will set a precedent for later hearings that will have bite. These later hearings (which again, unless something drastic happens in the next six months, we won't be seeing until 2006) will result in, among other things, the restoration of Iraq contracts to those French, German and Russian businesses from which they were stolen two years ago.

Now, as Juan Cole notes, the nations of the Middle East, especially Egypt, as well as the southern hemisphere, don't need this incentive to help us get a UN presence in Iraq. Their economies depend on the free flow of oil out of Iraq and Saudi Arabia every bit as much as ours. But the restoration of contracts, besides being the right thing to do, will go a long way towards persuading the UN's European members to help stabilize Iraq -- and we will need them on board for this.

Any other suggestions? Comments welcomed.

This content was created by a Daily Kos Community member.

Make YOUR voice heard!

Comments are closed on this story.