The Iraq analogy does not hold up. You don't have to be an appeasing liberal wimp to realize that Iraq didn't become an Al-Quaeda ops zone until we made it possible, even inevitable, and that even now most of the killing going on is either regional or local maneuvering by political or religious factions and nothing to do with the War on Terror. I know you don't agree with me on this, but I'm convinced of it, and who's to say who's right?

There were two good regions for going into Iraq, to stop an immediate WMD threat, or to set up a client state which could help us dominate the region politically and militarily. The first was justified as self-defense, it just turned out to be not true. The second was cynical and brutal, but if it had worked the morality would have been overlooked by
those who would benefit from it, which is practically everybody, even the rest of the Arab world. But that opportunity has now slipped from our fingers.

Our best bet now is to cut our losses and get out, and hope the resulting chaos will work in our favor, not anyone else's. The longer we stay, the more likely that we will lose control of the situation altogether, and the more likely that the negative consequences will be even worse the longer we stay. Right now, the very best we can hope for is a Shia-dominated state highly influenced by Iran and a total oppression of the Sunni minority, which will just infuriate our Sunni allies in that part of the world. That's the best that can happen. If we just go home now, that same situation will be the worst that can happen.

If the middle east erupts into war over Iraq, we will at least be out of it. If cooler heads prevail and some sort of peaceful compromise is brokered by all the participants, it will still occupy middle eastern diplomacy for decades, as all the parties maneuver for advantage. In either case, they'll be too busy to support Al-Quaeda against us. They will have their hands full while we regroup and restore our military.

Right now, we have a wolf by the ears in Iraq. we need to let go while we still can. The closer we get to the elections the harder it will be. And it's going to require Republican leadership to do this. The Democrats want to maintain the status quo because they fear being blamed if things go south over there, and they don't want the Republicans to claim "things were going just fine for us until the Democrats interfered". They want to pass the problem off to the next Democratic President, who can then just quit without penalty ("well, we gave it our best shot and it didn't work out"). If the next President's a Republican the Democrats can either get him to take the fall for leaving Iraq, or make his life miserable if he doesn't.