Should the USA's and the rest of the world's military power pull out of Iraq now?

The war in Iraq has progressed unlike most people thought it woule, especially the Bush administration. The final result, as in who will win, was never really in doubt. The post war planning was a catastrophe. After four and a half years, almost all of which were after the famous "Mission Accomplished" speech the question of whether we should leave Iraq now divides the political landscape. The answer depends on what you think needs to be, or already has been accomplished.

If the goal of the war is defined by the two main reasons given by the Bush administration, weapons of mass destruction and 9/11, then there is no reason to stay. The weapons of mass destruction have not been discovered and probably never will be, perhaps because they were a fallacy to begin with. Either they did exist and were destroyed during the Gulf War or they had been removed from the country in the years following the Gulf War and preceding the invasion in March 2003. The link with 9/11 was tenuous at best from the beginning and even the Bush administration has admitted Iraq had no connection with the attacks in 2001.

If the goal of the war was to remove Sadam Hussein from power then the war could have ended long ago. Sadam's removal, capture, trial and execution have all been completed with the Iraqi justice system working fairly, though sloppily, in bringing justice to Sadam and many of his top aids.

If the war in Iraq is a vital link in the war on terror, as the president has stated many times, then American troops can not leave Iraq, and will not leave Iraq in large numbers for a long time. An amorphous war like the war on terror can never end. There will always be people that want to do harm for what ever reason. It could be argued that the US presence in Iraq is making the terrorist threat worse, in which case the military is stuck in a vicious cycle that will be difficult to break. If you look at other peace keeping missions, such as Bosnia in the mid-1990s, the US is in for a long haul. The war in Bosnia had already ended before the US sent troops to keep the peace and a large number remain, over ten years later. In this scenario, a total withdrawal will not occur for at least a decade.

Along with the war on terror is the goal of stabilizing the Middle East. Again, this is a situation which may never end. The political, cultural, historical landscape of this part of the world leaves no easy answers. What is meant by a stable Middle East has never been well defined. If anything the Middle East may be more unstable than it was before the war. Sadam served as a buffer against Iran and Islamic terror groups such as Al Qaeda. His removal opened a Pandora's Box of trouble throughout the region.

Establishing democracy as a goal could be used to argue the troops should be brought home and they need to stay. The Iraqis have established a parliament, drafted a constitution and elected their representatives. In form and function a democracy has been created. However, this nascent democracy is far from stable and removing all US troops could create such disarray that the government would stand little chance of surviving. At the same time it does not appear Iraqi government officials really want to work too hard at establishing a stable government. Perhaps a government that knows it must get its act together sooner rather than later would step up the process.

There is no good or easy answer to whether the US should leave Iraq. Some may argue we never should have gone in in the first place. Perhaps but too late. The Bush administration definitely should have had a better plan for post-war Iraq, but they did not. As Colin Powell, the one former administration official with combat experience, stated, "If you broke, you have to fix it." Well, we broke it.