Iraq: What Do We Do Now?

I'm about to commit the ultimate heresy on this web site and call into question the logic of an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. First off, I should make it crystal clear that I was against getting into the war in the first place. Unfortunately, we had a "president" that was hell-bent into doing it and a Congress that was ready to give him the rubber stamp of approval to do it. However, that's an event we can't undo. So now the question is, what do we do?

As bad as Saddam was, he did hold Iran's Iraqi and Middle East ambitions in check and he kept the wolves of ethic, cultural and sectarian strife outside the doors. Now, through our efforts, Iran is meddling in a big way in internal Iraqi affairs and has become the dominant force in the Middle East. The wolves that Saddam kept a bay are loose and roaming the country and the only thing standing between them and killing even more innocent men, women and children is......us.

I don't want to be there longer than anyone else, but I also believe in the old saying "You break it, you bought it". This has to be fixed by us or someone else. The Iraqi government is laughably weak and corrupt, so forget about them. Personally, I would have followed Joe Biden's suggestion to convince the UN, NATO and other multilateral forces that might be better equipped culturally to deal with the problem (for example, the British military's success working with the locals in southern Iraq).

So, at this point, I want to use my diary and create an "open thread" to discuss solutions for ending the bloodshed we unleashed. Do we just pull out? Replace ourselves with an international force? It's all yours.