Who should the Democratics listen to when it comes to whether to leave Iraq?

Question

All involved agree the current US Administration dropped the ball in coming up with logical solutions.

Congressional leaders who said to leave years ago had been vilified.

The Iraqi government which was put in place by the Bush administration wants the troops to stay.

The people of Iraq by State Department surveys want the US to go home.

The Iraq Study Group headed by the US government (Fmr. Sec. of State James Baker) says negotiation must take place between all nations.

The American voters wants the troops to go home.

Answer 1

The Iraq Study Group (ISG) was kind of an interesting creature. It was composed entirely of people who agreed, at the outset, that invading Iraq was a good idea. It listened to testimony only from experts who also initially agreed the invasion was a good idea. Further, when they spent their four days in Iraq the remained in the Green Zone and talked largely with Sunni government officials. We now wonder why their "solutions" seem to be little more than retreads of old ideas. I seriously question the judgement of the people who served on the ISG.

Look, I'm a two-bit historian but I was able to understand that the war was a mistake and that we would get bogged down in an insurgency and sectarian violence. The evidence was there for all to see. Saddam was not so much an iron-fisted dictator as he was a very slick politician who was able to maintain ruling power through a system of bribery, coercion, and when needed, fear. He was really a kind of coalition leader - The Ba'athist movement was really the central core of Iraqi society. Absent that political organization, the nation lost its national identity and fell back upon old tribal alliances.

Think about it, if Washington, D.C. were suddenly captured and all our national leaders were rounded up, where would we turn for leadership and resistance - to our state governments. That's essentially what happened in Iraq. The people who lead us into this war made the mistakes they made because they really had very little concept of how Iraq was run and how the nation's cultures interact with one another.

We can't re-do the ISG, but I take a lot of what they have to say with a grain of salt. Yes, we need to get out and get out soon. But we must manage that withdrawal such that we don't create a new, more dangerous Saddam in our absence. I would hate to see all that death only to have an al Sadr come to power and cause us even more trouble in the future.

We MUST normaliza our diplomatic relationships with Syria and Iran. Period. We must get American products into their market places and we must give their economies a boost in the way we did with the Soviet Union beginning in the 1980's. That's how we win in the Middle East - we make democracy and Western ideals a "friendly" option, not something dropped at the point of a gun.

This "we don't negotiate" hardline is foolishness. We negotiated with the Sovs during the Cold War - has everyone forgotten the Red Phone?

Answer 2

truly the people of iraq wants us to stay but to me the democratics should listen to the us ground leaders in iraq on how and when we should leave and they say thay should stay about 3-4 years

Answer 3

I think that everyone involved has decided that US troops should begin to transfer responsibility to the Iraqi people, all that is left is to have someone with some "GUTS " take the lead and say ..".When".... that takes place,...get it done,.... and get the hell out...... Stop draggin your damned Political feet, and "get-r-done"

Answer 4

no iraq wants us there as long as we can stay
the american people want us to finish the job not pull out tomorrow.
pulling out tomorrow is NOT the answer according to the report.

the oeople we DO need to talk are the sunnis and shi'its themselves noy iran and syria...come on they WANT us to lose!