Is it time to pull out?

This is worth a look. The Guardian asks Jonathan Schell:

President Bush said recently of the Iraqis, "It's going to take a while for them to understand what freedom is all about." Hachim Hassani, a representative of the Iraqi Islamic party, a leading Sunni Muslim group on the so-called governing council, might have been answering him when he commented to the Los Angeles Times, "The Iraqi people now equate democracy with bloodshed."

Under these circumstances, staying the course cannot benefit Iraq. On the contrary, each additional day that American troops continue to fight in Iraq can only compound the eventual price of the original mistake. More lives, American and Iraqi, will be lost; the society will be disorganised and pulverised; and any chances for a better future will be reduced, not fostered.

Noam Chosky:

Occupying armies have responsibilities, not rights. Their primary responsibility is to withdraw as quickly and expeditiously as possible, in a manner determined by the occupied population.

Howard Zinn:

The history of military occupations of third world countries is that they bring neither democracy nor security. The laments that "we mustn't cut and run", "we must stay the course", our "reputation" will be imperilled etc are exactly what we heard when, at the start of the Vietnam escalation, some of us called for immediate withdrawal. The result of staying the course was 58,000 Americans and several million Vietnamese dead.

and William R Polk:

The world press has reported that very little real authority will be handed over to the Iraqis or the UN. If the UN is to be of any value in pacifying Iraq, it cannot simply be used by the US as a fig leaf. It must show Iraqis that it is truly independent, and so a worthwhile step forward for them.

For all that, some form of UN trusteeship appears to be the best answer now available. It seems to me that the best form of trusteeship is minimal, not much more than attempting to keep order. Anything more will certainly raise fears in Iraq that outsiders - the United States or the UN - really intend to stay.

That will create the only unity there now is in Iraq - hostility to foreigners.

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