The American Conservative’s anti-Iraq War issue

Leon Hadar looks forward to the year 2010:

“The agreement reached in Bern is testimony to the willingness of all Iraqis, Arabs and Kurds, as well their neighbors in the region, to overcome deep-rooted differences,” Secretary Holbrooke said during a speech here three days ago. After expressing his gratitude to President Hillary Clinton . . . link

Paul W. Schroeder critiques the utopian optimism of neoconservatives and the inherently contradictory policy that this engendered:

The inability to locate WMD proved precisely what opponents of war had earlier contended: traditional international methods of containment, deterrence, and coercive diplomacy not only could work in the new age of terror, but in fact had worked. Iraq had no WMD because the previous decade of sanctions and pressure had effectively deterred Saddam from reviving his earlier programs. Thus, by insisting on military action, the U.S. aborted a long-established international protocol for fire prevention that had already succeeded in Iraq. It ignited a fire supposedly to counter another fire that was already effectively extinguished. Link.

Gregory Cochran makes the case for speedy troop withdrawal:

The bottom line is that we can get troops and war-fighting equipment out of Iraq rapidly and relatively safely, certainly in less than six months, probably in three. Neither the Iraqis nor the Department of Agriculture can materially interfere with withdrawal. It would be faster than that, except for complications such as evacuating contractors and completely securing or destroying advanced weaponry that we don’t want examined or copied by potential enemies. That, we need to be careful about. Fast withdrawal is safer than slow—it minimizes the slow bleed of occupation, and it avoids leaving dangerously weak forces in-country for long periods. Once we make up our mind to leave, “then ‘twere well ‘twere done quickly.” Link.

Justin Logan finds the case against Iran sorely short of evidence:

The second problem with the Iran blame game is that by and large the factions that the Iranians are accused of supporting and arming are the very same factions that control the Iraqi government. Both major Shia parties that comprise the Iraqi government have close ties to Iran, having been organized in exile there in the 1980s. Current U.S. strategy in Iraq is ostensibly based on consolidating enough support in the Iraqi government that U.S. troops can eventually leave. At the same time, the Bush administration is blaming the Iraqi government’s number-one supporter in the region for not being supportive enough. Link.