Spring 2008

Tremendous piece. I agree totally that our current and future policies in Iraq need to be guided by the realities of today and not just wishing them away. The U.S. has incured responsibities and moral obligations there that they just can not walk away from. Thank you for your article.

Posted by davidwh | June 17, 2008 9:04:41 AM EDT

Ms. Elshtain, Your article is nothing more than a neocon guilt trip, developed after some sub-liminal remorse for initiating an illegal, obviuosly unjust war. You wring your hands at the possible consequences if we leave Iraq and totally ignore the over 4000 U.S. troops killed and 30,000 wounded, and for what? For carrying the neocon flag into the worst blunder in U.S. history? If you are so concerned about human suffering, you could make a better argument for U.S. involvement in preventing the various genocides which have and are occurring on the African continent. We will b e spending somewhere between $1 Trillion and $2 Trillion in Iraq by the time we leave. Enough is enough in dollars and lives. Let those neocons who are so concerned raise a private army with their own funds to help prop up Mailiki's government. All we have managed to do in Iraq is to help the Iraqis trade one type of hell from another. Like Vietnam, Iraq will have to grow up and eventually become a stable state, but not at the cost of more American lives and treasure.

Posted by Silvio J. Anichini | June 17, 2008 9:43:42 AM EDT

We definitely have to do our best to prevent a bloodbath when we leave Iraq. That said, we can't be hostage to Iraq indefinitely because of this. If they are determined to have a bloody civil war, that's their call in the end, not ours. It could come whenever we left, however far into the future. There is no comparison between Vietnam and Iraq, except that both were catastrophic failures of judgement by American policy elites. Iraq was the greatest error, by far, in the history of American foreign policy. If Obama is elected, we can expect the most devastating investigation into the roots of this failure in the history of the such debacles in our nation. The fact that the war was the product of conscious lying by the neocons and Bush makes the war itself a crime, pure and simple, a murder of unexampled magnitude in our history, as Vincent Bugliosi has demonstrated in his current book.

Posted by jeanrenoir | June 17, 2008 10:35:44 AM EDT

Professor Bethke Elshtain's essay is quite erudite. However, the eloquent words mask some important realities. To begin with, the people implementing the so-called just war policies that began the war, and are asked to implement just war exit strategies, are not her privileged students at the University of Chicago. Although some U.S. soldiers in Iraq come from educated or economically privileged families, most do not. Often they are people who have fallen through the cracks of our American educational and economic system. Unfortunately, their brighter futures lie in fighting in Iraq rather than studying at the University of Chicago. Does just war theory raise questions about which individuals actually do the fighting?Isit just to send the poor and uneducated to fight wars while the privileged attend great universities and Chicago Cubs baseball games. The elevated language of just war theory should also consider such questions. Finally, if Professor Bethke Elshtair is so devoted to the cause of Iraq, as is John McCain, is she willing to pay for this just exit strategy by raising taxes? Or, like John McCain, does she prefer to pay for the high cost of just war by burdening future generations? Is there just money for a just war?

Posted by Hank Woods | June 17, 2008 10:45:14 AM EDT

What about further Iraqi loss of life that will occur if we stay in iraq. We should quit forthwith.

Posted by kevin farrell | June 17, 2008 10:58:14 AM EDT

Okay, now I get it. All America needs to do is 'stay the course!' What about not being apologists for war-mongerers. As an American citizen opposed to the invasion, how its been conducted and the related decline in American lifestyle; not to mention the profiteering. I don't feel as a tax payer that I, nor my children should be responsible for the corporate exploration that has been going on.

Posted by TiredTroy | June 17, 2008 11:49:14 AM EDT

This article is not a neocon guilt trip, nor an argument for or against the economic makeup of our armed forces. The proof of logic in this article is proven out by the inept attempts of attacking its core truths with issues outside the authors focus. Our lack of action in Darfur has nothing to do with the logic of staying in Iraq. Yes, the same logic applies in both cases, but the lack of action in one case does not disprove the logic. Yes, our military is made of mostly people from low economic classes, but those people volunteered to join the military and knew the obligation before hand. The ideology of the invasion can be logically argued by both sides. The horrific execution of the war is undeniable. Our obligation to the people of Iraq is to stay until it is stable or they ask us to leave. In the words of Colin Powell, "You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people. You will own all their hopes, aspirations, and problems. You'll own it all".

Posted by ShannonL | June 17, 2008 12:10:30 PM EDT

As for the time table for with-drawl from Iraq, your article is skewed and misleading. Leaders at the pentagon have drawn up plans and pointed out it could be done within a year. Now, cause and effect is another debate, but it can be logistically done.

Posted by E1 | June 17, 2008 12:16:15 PM EDT

Does anyone believe that the killing of millions in Cambodia would have happened if ground troop had remained in Vietnam? Many on the left were sickened by that spectacle, but took no blame for the fact that their own anti-war actions led directly what happened in Cambodia. I am constantly amazed at the lack of historical perspective shown by our leaders. As was stated recently, we will be remembered by how we get out of Iraq and not by how we got in.

Posted by R Blackburn | June 17, 2008 2:48:18 PM EDT

Mr. Elshtain - One very important aspect is missing from your thesis. What if it is NOT within the financial, military and intellectual capabilities of the U.S. to fix Iraq. Based on the last 5 years experience, it is entirely possible that our continued presence will make things worse in Iraq. We do not understand the Arab culture enough to help them with their political problems and our efforts at reconstruction using contractors has shown to be expensive and ineffectual. 5 years on we still have not reconstructed the electrical grid and power generation. It seems to me that your thesis is the same type of hubris that got us into Iraq in the first place. The Omnipotent and Omniscient America is NOT all that you think it is. At this point 70% of the Iraqis want us gone. At some point in the not too distant future that sentiment will be reflected in the Iraqi Parliment and leadership. If they ask us to leave while the job in your mind is unfinished, you seem to imply that we should not comply. In other words, they know not what they ask for so Big Daddy America will ignore their will. I believe you are naive about America's capablilities as well as the Arab culture.

Posted by John LeDell | June 17, 2008 8:35:35 PM EDT

We are (rightly) reminded nearly daily by some of the same people who are arguing that we owe the Iraqis nothing more that we have a continuing (and apparently unending) responsibility to alleviate the problems that we, as heirs to the imperialists and colonialists who messed up Africa, caused in that far away place. We are the ones who rightly or wrongly messed up Iraq and the advocates of us standing up to our responsibilities in Africa are ready after 6 or so years to stamp our bill "paid in full". There is surely a closer cause and effect relationship to the problems we have caused in Iraq than the ones that are currently afflicting Africa. By current standards I would suggest that we have no business undertaking any mission, foreign or domestic, which cannot be fully resolved in five years. Mayflies have longer attention spans than we do.

Posted by mrdon | June 17, 2008 10:12:21 PM EDT

Ms. Elshtain's article is grounded on a paternalistic sense of noblesse oblige. Citing the anticipation of horrors upon rapid withdrawal, Elshtain argues that there should be a gentle landing for the Iraqi's who may face reprisals for collaborating with the US. Unfortunately, that argument rings hollow given the morally bankrupt activities of the US in Iraq. Our moral obligations begin and end with moral conduct. The invasion of Iraq was wrong. It cannot be made right by some sort of misquided concern for a future that always remains unpredictable. One must give each Iraqi the responsibility for his or her choices. As long as we flatter ourselves as the saviours of freedom, we will never recognize that freedom is never given but always won.

Posted by Julian | June 20, 2008 5:52:28 PM EDT

What a fascinating essay. And the follow-up comments are just to die for. To read Elshtain's essay one is left with the distinct impression that (i) the US invasion and occupation of Iraq was in accord with international law under Article 51 (self-defense) and (ii) that the overwhelming majority of Iraqi citizens are clamoring for US forces to remain among them well into the foreseeable future. Given the fact that neither is true by what "right" do we remain? The US attack upon Iraq was a war of aggression, a war crime--in fact the ultimate crime. In addition to our immediate withdrawal from their ruined country, we owe the Iraqi people massive reparations for the destruction and lost of life we've caused. Our "responsibility"extends no further than this. The terrible violence Elshtain wrings her hands over should US forces exit Iraq conveniently ignores the fact that the primary source of violence and destruction are the US forces. WE drop 500 to 2000 pound high explosive ordinance in densely populated urban areas. WE occupy with 160,000 troops a nation we've polluted with deadly depleted uranium ordinance. WE bare primary responsibility for the death of 1.2 million Iraqis. "The U.S. has incured responsibities and moral obligations there that they just can not walk away from" -davidwh Yes, just as Imperial Japan did in China and Korea. Just as Russia did in Afghanistan. Funny how the West demanded that those forces leave the occupied territories without consideration for the aggressor's "concern" for the post-invasion welfare of the conquered peoples. There should be some limits to hypocrisy.

Posted by Coldtype | June 21, 2008 2:43:47 PM EDT

The issue is simpler than people are making it. We broke it, and now we are obligated, in withdrawing from Iraq, to do so with some care that the result is not genocide or a bloodbath among Iraqis. I think that Elshtain´s article, though excellent, ironically obscures the simplicity of the case by immersing it in a formal setting of almost frilly- or baroque-sounding just war theory. In a way, the essential point is as trivial and obvious as "withdraw considerately if possible," something decent armed forces, and decent lovers, both try to do. Anyway, Obama, if he becomes president, will not want to leave Iraq in such a way that Iraq descends into chaos, especially now when even many on the left are agreeing that the situation on the ground has improved considerably. Obama has said, that if the situation has indeed improved over the last year, that is another reason to withdraw quickly. But Obama has also given hints that he will "withdraw considerately." Part of being considerate is timing. Those who attack Elshtain for proposing this elementary decency are doing so because they want to back Obama's campaign, not because they, or he, really believe the U.S. should withdraw without any concern for how our timing in doing so may cause disaster for Iraqis. Or if Obama and his base really do believe that we shouldn't care about the effect of our timing, then they are no better than the extreme partisans of the right they love to hate.

Posted by traeh | June 22, 2008 8:41:06 AM EDT