Time to Leave - New York Times
The New York Times

November 21, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist

Time to Leave
By
PAUL KRUGMAN

Not long ago wise heads offered some advice to those of us who had argued
since 2003 that the Iraq war was sold on false pretenses: give it up. The
2004
election, they said, showed that we would never convince the American
people. They suggested that we stop talking about how we got into Iraq and
focus
instead on what to do next.

It turns out that the wise heads were wrong. A solid majority of Americans
now believe that we were misled into war. And it is only now, when the
public
has realized the truth about the past, that serious discussions about where
we are and where we're going are able to get a hearing.

Representative John Murtha's speech calling for a quick departure from Iraq
was full of passion, but it was also serious and specific in a way rarely
seen
on the other side of the debate. President Bush and his apologists speak in
vague generalities about staying the course and finishing the job. But Mr.
Murtha spoke of mounting casualties and lagging recruiting, the rising
frequency of insurgent attacks, stagnant oil production and lack of clean
water.

Mr. Murtha - a much-decorated veteran who cares deeply about America's
fighting men and women - argued that our presence in Iraq is making things
worse,
not better. Meanwhile, the war is destroying the military he loves. And
that's why he wants us out as soon as possible.

I'd add that the war is also destroying America's moral authority. When Mr.
Bush speaks of human rights, the world thinks of Abu Ghraib. (In his speech,
Mr. Murtha pointed out the obvious: torture at Abu Ghraib helped fuel the
insurgency.) When administration officials talk of spreading freedom, the
world
thinks about the reality that much of Iraq is now ruled by theocrats and
their militias.

Some administration officials accused Mr. Murtha of undermining the troops
and giving comfort to the enemy. But that sort of thing no longer works, now
that the administration has lost the public's trust.

Instead, defenders of our current policy have had to make a substantive
argument: we can't leave Iraq now, because a civil war will break out after
we're
gone. One is tempted to say that they should have thought about that
possibility back when they were cheerleading us into this war. But the real
question
is this: When, exactly, would be a good time to leave Iraq?

The fact is that we're not going to stay in Iraq until we achieve victory,
whatever that means in this context. At most, we'll stay until the American
military
can take no more.

Mr. Bush never asked the nation for the sacrifices - higher taxes, a bigger
military and, possibly, a revived draft - that might have made a long-term
commitment
to Iraq possible. Instead, the war has been fought on borrowed money and
borrowed time. And time is running out. With some military units on their
third
tour of duty in Iraq, the superb volunteer army that Mr. Bush inherited is
in increasing danger of facing a collapse in quality and morale similar to
the
collapse of the officer corps in the early 1970's.

So the question isn't whether things will be ugly after American forces
leave Iraq. They probably will. The question, instead, is whether it makes
sense
to keep the war going for another year or two, which is all the time we
realistically have.

Pessimists think that Iraq will fall into chaos whenever we leave. If so,
we're better off leaving sooner rather than later. As a Marine officer
quoted
by James Fallows in the current Atlantic Monthly puts it, "We can lose in
Iraq and destroy our Army, or we can just lose."

And there's a good case to be made that our departure will actually improve
matters. As Mr. Murtha pointed out in his speech, the insurgency derives
much
of its support from the perception that it's resisting a foreign occupier.
Once we're gone, the odds are that Iraqis, who don't have a tradition of
religious
extremism, will turn on fanatical foreigners like Zarqawi.

The only way to justify staying in Iraq is to make the case that stretching
the U.S. army to its breaking point will buy time for something good to
happen.
I don't think you can make that case convincingly. So Mr. Murtha is right:
it's time to leave.
Posted by MIriam V.