I said it before and I’ll say it again, if we’re not going to get the kind of democracy in Iraq that the neo-cons promised (”free-market, pro-American, Israel-friendly” and equal rights for all Iraqi civilians), and we know that we won’t, then why wait? We should get out now and let the Iraqi government fight their own battle for democracy…or not-a-democracy. Let Iraq’s free-marketplace of ideology sort it out.

John Burns in today’s NY Times makes this point more forcefully, illustrating Iraq’s rapid (as in the last 10 days or so) descent into civil war. He writes, “…American commanders have continued to hint at the possibility of at least an initial reduction of the 140,000 American troops stationed here by next summer, contingent on progress in creating effective Iraqi units. Some senior officers have said privately that there is a chance that the pullback will be ordered regardless of what is happening in the war, and that the rationale will be that Iraq - its politicians and its warriors - will ultimately have to find ways of overcoming their divides on their own.”

“America, these officers seem to be saying, can do only so much, and if Iraqis are hellbent on settling matters violently - at the worst, by civil war - that, in the end, would be their sovereign choice.” More here…

This post was written by Mary Mancini