What Kissinger and his followers never could grasp was that even after losing in Vietnam, the world did not come to end. There was no rattling of dominoes, Asia did not fall to the Communists, and Vietnam and China were soon at war with each other. The Vietnamese did everything they could to re-establish normal diplomatic and trade relations with us. In fact, Vietnam's only aggression was against Pol Pot, who we and the Chinese both supported just to get back at Hanoi.

We can't guarantee that our withdrawal from Iraq will end as benignly, but neither can we predict that disaster will necessarily follow. either.
In fact, the direst prediction, that civil war will erupt in Iraq and that
Jordan, Syria, Iran and the Gulf States will become involved against each other may be the best possible outcome of all for American interests.

I concede that it is very dangerous to embark on a course of action whose consequences cannot be predicted, but we did that already, didn't we?