BAGHDAD (Jan. 21, 2009) -- Iraq’s bloody civil war worsened today, when 10,000 heavily armed troops from the Shiite state of Shiastan pushed north from Najaf and Rumaythah. The attack threatened to trap three battalions of U.S.-backed Sunnis in the region.
The latest round of fighting has triggered a new wave of refugees into Kuwait and Jordan, the United Nations reported today. Millions of Iraqis have fled the country since American troops pulled out in 2006, a controversial withdrawal that al Qaeda celebrates as a watershed victory.
Word of today’s offensive pushed crude oil prices to $210 per barrel, a new record, certain to cause problems for the newly inaugurated American president ...
All right, enough with the doom and gloom. The preceding paragraphs are fiction, but they reflect what’s likely to happen if the United States pulls out of Iraq before the country is stabilized and able to function on its own. Unfortunately, some of our politicians want to do exactly that.
“We believe that a phased redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq should begin before the end of 2006,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid wrote in a letter both signed in August. Even if our task there remains unfinished?
As President Bush put it on Oct. 11, “when you pull out before the job is done, that’s cut and run as far as I’m concerned. And that’s cut and run as far as most Americans are concerned.”
Heritage Foundation experts James Carafano and James Phillips explained in a recent paper what’s likely to happen if we withdraw quickly. “Such a shortsighted U.S. policy would be a severe blow to the Iraqi security situation, Iraqi oil exports, U.S. allies in the region, the global war against terrorism and the future of all Iraqis,” they write.
If we leave now, we’d leave the Iraqi army (with all its heavy weapons) up for grabs. That’s likely to spark a civil war, as soldiers align themselves into religious and regional militias.
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