A modest (but improbable) proposal

Dave and the gang at The Bellman got me thinking about the nature of our moral obligation to Iraq. I'm pretty firmly in the "withdrawal sooner rather than later" camp, but do have a certain amount of sympathy to the argument that because we've fucked that country up, we should have to fix it. And it seems that in order to fix Iraq, we'd have to dramatically escalate the number of troops there (ours or someone else's) in order to provide a secure environment in which a political settlement could be reached.

Fine, problem is no one trusts the people who are prosecuting the war - not the men and women in the military, not the American public, not the international community, not the Iraqi people. No one. The people of the United States, and of any foreign nation who might be asked to help, have every right to say no to throwing more lives into the Iraq meatgrinder based on the performance of the Bush Administration. We simply have no confidence in them. They've repeatedly lied, they were incompetent in their prosecution of the war, and they've dragged the world into a very, very dark place. Why should they be allowed to keep fighting this war?

Again, however, an unstable Iraq is a potential disaster for the entire Middle East, with effects that would ripple far beyond the region. And while I've argued that the U.S. presence isn't helping the situation, I can certainly see how a rapid withdrawal leaves a vacuum in which millions of lives could be lost. Preventing that, to me, is a compelling reason to stay.

So here it is - if Bush is really sincere about wanting to stabilize Iraq and facilitate a political settlement, here are the conditions that must be met:

• The mission is framed explicitly in these goals, and any foreign troops leave as soon as they are asked to by the (hopefully solvent) Iraqi government. No permanent bases. No military advisors. We get out, and that's that.
• A full accounting of the run-up to and prosecution of the war must be had in order to re-establish any sort of public and international trust in the mission, and the Bush administration must be willing to abide by the findings of this investigation. That means rooting out the war criminals amongst the civilian leadership and military brass who pushed an illegal war, approved of torture, etc. etc. That means discussing the real reasons why the Iraq invasion was pushed - geopolitics, oil, world domination, whatever. A full and complete accounting, with the people responsible removed from power and held accountable. Nothing less.
• An international coalition (preferably mostly non-Western) is brought in to help provide security and mediate.

So there's my scenario for a plan - the only plan - I'd support for maintaining or increasing our involvement in Iraq. Pie in the sky, I know. Bushco will never agree to that. Rumsfeld will go quietly into the night. The generals who toed the line in order suck up to their civilian masters will quietly collect their pensions. But I will go on record as saying that with the current bunch in power, there is no way that the mess in Iraq will be resolved.