Staying the Course

 The Economist, a great British magazine, offers an outstanding argument (and justified criticism of the Bush Administration) on why the United States must not withdraw from Iraq.  Excerpts (reg. required):

Why America must stay
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This newspaper strongly disagrees [with Congressman Murtha's suggested pulling of troops out of Iraq].  In our opinion it would be disastrous for America to retreat hastily from Iraq.  Yet it is also well past time for George Bush to spell out to the American people much more clearly and honestly than he has hitherto done why their sons and daughters fighting in Iraq should remain in harm's way.
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[T]he catalogue of failures thus far does raise serious questions about the administration's ability to make Iraq work--ever.  Mr Bush's team mis-sold the war, neglected post-invasion planning, has never committed enough troops to the task and has taken a cavalier attitude to human rights.  Abu Ghraib, a place of unspeakable suffering under Mr Hussein, will go into the history books as a symbol of American shame.  The awful irony is that the specious link which the administration claimed existed between Iraq and al-Qaeda in order to justify going to war now exists.
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Iraq is not Vietnam.  Most Iraqis share America's aims: the Shia Arabs and Kurds make up some 80% of the population, while the insurgents operate mainly in four of Iraq's 18 provinces.  After boycotting the first general election in January, more Sunni Arabs are taking part in peaceful politics.  Many voted in last month's referendum that endorsed a new constitution; more should be drawn into next month's election, enabling a more representative government to emerge. . . . It seems, too, that the Arab world may be turning against the more extreme part of the insurgency--the jihadists led by al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who blow up mosques around Baghdad and Palestinian wedding parties in Jordan.  Though few Arabs publicly admit it, Mr Bush's efforts to spread democracy in the region are starting to bear fruit.

So America does have something to defend in Iraq.  Which, for Mr Bush's critics, leads into the most temping part of Mr Murtha's argument: that American troops are now a barrier to further progress; that if they left, Mr Zarqawi would lose the one thing that unites the Sunnis and jihadists; and that, in consequence, Iraqis would have to look after their own security.  This has a seductive logic, but flies in the face of the evidence.  Most of the insurgents' victims are Iraqis, not American soldiers.  There are still too few American troops, not too many.  And the Iraqi forces that America is training are not yet ready to stand on their own feet.  By all means, hand over more duties to them, letting American and other coalition troops withdraw from the cities where they are most conspicuous and offensive to patriotic Iraqis.  Over time, American numbers should fall.  But that should happen because the Iraqis are getting stronger, not because the Americans are feeling weaker.  Nor should a fixed timetable be set, for that would embolden the insurgents.

The cost to America of staying in Iraq may be high, but the cost of retreat would be higher.  By fleeing, America would not buy itself peace.  Mr Zarqawi and his fellow fanatics have promised to hound America around the globe.  Driving America out of Iraq would grant militant Islam a huge victory.  Arabs who want to modernise their region would know that they could not count on America to stand by its friends.

If such reasoning sounds negative--America must stay because the consequences of leaving would be too awful--treat that as a sad reflection of how Mr. Bush's vision for the Middle East has soured.  The road ahead looks bloody and costly.  But this is not the time to retreat.