Peter Neumann's Crystal Ball

Count me among those who believe that the tragedy of Iraq (one of them) is that we can't walk away. One reason I'm so mad at these bums is that they have left us far more deeply involved in a far more dangerous and unstable Middle East than we were before they started.

I don't know anybody in government who talks realistically about this point (although Jack Murtha sometimes comes close), Happily, Foreign Policy now hoiks up Peter R. Neumann, director of the Centre for Defence Studies at King’s College London, who offers a bit of sobersided futurology (link). The whole piece is worth reading, but here's a money shot:

[A] withdrawal announcement is much more likely to drive more Sunnis into the arms of the insurgency than it is to compel the insurgents to the negotiating table. ...
If the United States announces a timetable for withdrawal, the only way this grim scenario will not come to pass is if Sunnis and Shiites miraculously learn to trust each other again. That’s becoming more unlikely every day. ...

In their quest to win the policy argument, those who favor heading for the exits in Iraq shouldn’t dismiss as mere political rhetoric the idea that a sectarian blood bath—not reconciliation—is the most likely outcome. Most importantly, though, U.S. political leaders should understand that the game is not over once a withdrawal date is set. On the contrary, getting out of Iraq without unleashing a civil war is likely to be as delicate an operation as getting into the country was in the first place. Let us hope that if the United States does leave, the planning is better this time around.