I met Tom Hayden and his former wife, Jane Fonda, years ago while attending college in San Diego. He was a likeable fellow, with a passion for peace. In the days following the Vietnam War, what he had to say then made sense. We had just lost a war which saw over 50,000 American soldiers die. The Vietnam War was a bad idea based upon bad policy leading to bad circumstances.

And, while the second Iraq War is a bad idea, based upon bad policy, we cannot let it lead to bad circumstances. Summarily pulling out is precisely the wrong thing to do as doing so would lead towards civil war that could easily spread into southern Turkey and Jordan. If we're concerned at all about the 100,000 civilians who have died at the hands of American firepower, imagine what an unrestrained conflict among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds would look like.

Apart from being a bad idea, Tom Hayden's plan is a cheap rhetorical pipe dream. His belief that we could repeat the grassroots anti-war movement of the 1960's is just wistful dreaming.

Going to war in Iraq was a bad idea. Summarily pulling out would be even worse.