corrente

In a perfect world, that is.

I agree, maybe, with those who would rather not "just leave" Iraq—though I think the only way to make Iraq the sort of relative success that Kosovo was is to bring on a Democratic administration—but "we can't just leave" is a simple minded argument.

In reality, there's a lot of stuff "we can't just."

Like "we can't just have Mom eating dogfood from the Dollar Store because we gave away the Social Security money to the super-rich in tax cuts."

Since there's not an infinite amount of money, we have to choose. Leah's "Costs of War" meter makes this point forcefully. The "we can't just leave" argument leaves out the element of making hard choices, and the sacrifices we make when we do that.

Even in the national security realm, would I "just leave" Iraq if I could nobble AQ? In a heartbeat, especially since the Bush gang has never shown a link between Saddam and AQ. Would I "just leave" Iraq if doing that would solve the North Korean crisis? Sure.

So enough with the "we can't just leave" argument.