"Strategic Drift"

From a column by John Podesta, Lawrence J. Korb and Brian Katulis Washington Post:

With apparent disregard for the opinion of the American people, the debate over whether the large U.S. military presence in Iraq threatens our national security has been put on hold. Both political parties seem resigned to allowing the Bush administration to run out the clock on its Iraq strategy and bequeath this quagmire to the next president. The result is best described as strategic drift, and stopping it won't be easy.

Strategic drift is not a plan. We don't get out of Iraq, because the leadership on neither side is motivated to get us out.

President Bush claims that his strategy is having some success, but toward what end? He argued that the surge would provide the political breathing space needed to achieve a unified, peaceful Iraq. But its successes, which Bush says come from a reduction of casualties in certain areas, have been accompanied by massive sectarian cleansing. The surge has not moved us closer to national reconciliation.

Casualties are down among Iraqis, although the counts may not be somewhat suspect. Still, nearly 1000 die a month. Deaths and wounded numbers of US troops are down, too, but to what purpose? What is the vision of the end game? The numbers of refugees within and outside Iraq continues to grow, week by week, month by month.

Similarly, the presence of a large U.S. combat force contributes to regional instability. Since the surge began, the number of internally displaced Iraqis has more than doubled. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has said that more than 2 million Iraqis have left the country, and tens of thousands flee every day, often to squalid camps in Syria and Jordan.

What is the "freedom" that we have brought to the Iraqis? The freedom to flee their unsafe homes, freedom from electricity and drinking water, freedom from safe roads to travel, freedom from jobs? Are these the reasons why we stay? To prolong these conditions?

There is one sure way to stop this drift. The United States must set a firm withdrawal date. It is the only way Iraqis and regional leaders will make the compromises necessary to stabilize Iraq and the entire Middle East. This withdrawal can be completed safely in 12 to 18 months and should be started immediately.

Yes! Absolutely! Set a date. We're drifting, but it's not an innocuous drift down a stream in a canoe. We're in a war. We simply cannot allow ourselves the luxury of drifting for years upon years in what appears to be a war without end that is killing, maiming, and making refugees of large numbers of the population and destroying a country.