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Kevin Drum is dead on with this one. Two of the three Iraq related posts on the front page of TNR today are worthless. But the third, a piece by George Packer entitled Save Whomever We Can, raises an essential point that I've not yet heard elsewhere. An excerpt:

Withdrawal means that the United States will have to watch Iraqis die in ever greater numbers without doing much of anything to prevent it, because the welfare of Iraqis will no longer be among our central concerns. Those Iraqis who have had anything to do with the occupation and its promises of democracy will be among the first to be killed: the translators, the government officials, the embassy employees, the journalists, the organizers of women's and human rights groups. As it is, they are being killed one by one. (I personally know at least half a dozen of them who have been murdered.) Without the protection of the Green Zone, U.S. bases, or the inhibiting effect on the Sunni and Shia militias of 150,000 U.S. troops, they will be killed in much greater numbers. To me, the relevant historical analogy is not the helicopters taking off from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, leaving thousands of Vietnamese to the reeducation camps. It is the systematic slaughter by the Khmer Rouge of every Cambodian who appeared to have had anything to do with the West.

If the United States leaves Iraq, our last shred of honor and decency will require us to save as many of these Iraqis as possible. In June, a U.S. Embassy cable about the lives of the Iraqi staff was leaked to The Washington Post. Among many disturbing examples of intimidation and fear was this sentence: "In March, a few staff approached us to ask what provisions would we make for them if we evacuate." The cable gave no answer. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad does not issue visas. Iraqis who want to come to the United States must make their way across dangerous territory to a neighboring country that has a U.S. Embassy with a consular section. Iran and Syria do not; Jordan has recently begun to bar entry to Iraqi men under the age of 35. For a military translator to have a chance at coming to the United States, he must be able to prove that he worked for at least a year with U.S. forces and have the recommendation of a general officer--nearly impossible in most cases. Our current approach essentially traps Iraqis inside their country, where they will have to choose, like Osman, between jihadists and death squads.

We should start issuing visas in Baghdad, as well as in the regional embassies in Mosul, Kirkuk, Hilla, and Basra. We should issue them liberally, which means that we should vastly increase our quota for Iraqi refugees. (Last year, it was fewer than 200.) We should prepare contingency plans for massive airlifts and ground escorts. We should be ready for desperate and angry crowds at the gates of the Green Zone and U.S. bases. We should not allow wishful thinking to put off these decisions until it's too late. We should not compound our betrayals of Iraqis who put their hopes in our hands.

We didn't plan the invasion properly. We didn't plan for the post-invasion occupation. We didn't plan for the post-invasion peace. Eventually, whether we like it or not, we will have to leave. And Packer is absolutely right - when we do, we must plan for it properly and do it with honour. Tens of thousands of lives could be at stake. We asked people to trust us, and many of them did. However and whenever we leave, we cannot simply abandon them and betray that trust.

I wish I had more faith in this administration to do this properly. I wish I had some reason to believe that they would do this the right way. But nothing - and yes, I mean that literally - over the past 6 years gives me any reason to have any hope whatsoever that they will do this the right way.

As for withdrawal itself? I feel the same way today that I felt in the months before the invasion. It's going to happen. It cannot be stopped. The hawks can object as loudly and vociferously as they want, but withdrawal is coming. It is unavoidable. Civil war is already here, and chaos will not be far behind. The question is not if we leave, but when. I for one would prefer we do it while we still have at least a tiny bit of control over the situation. How many more men and women need to die for a needless mistake? How many?

UPDATE: For the record, most of the rest of these pieces in TNR are worthless. Niall Ferguson is a fine historian, but a solution "in the spirit of Gertrude Bell?" Are you kidding me? She's part of the reason we're in this mess, albeit decades after her death. And Micahel Walzer's suggestion that we talk it out is fine, except that I'm not entirely sure the people he suggests we talk to really want to hear from us. Richard Clarke, not surprisingly, offers the second-best set of suggestions to Packer: Admit It's Over:

Americans tend to think we can achieve almost any goal if we just expend more resources and try a bit harder. That spirit has built the greatest nation in history, but it may be dooming Iraq. As the head of the British Army recently noted, the very presence of large numbers of foreign combat troops is the source of much of the violence and instability. Our efforts, then, are merely postponing the day when Iraqis find their way to something approaching normalcy. Only withdrawal offers a realistic path forward.

Too often in the Iraq debate, we have let intuition, slogans, and appealing thoughts cloud logic. Perhaps the most troublesome example is the argument that we must honor the American dead by staying until we can build something worthy of their sacrifice. Stripped of its emotional tones, this argument is, in economic analysis, an appeal to sunk cost. An MIT professor once promised to fail me if I ever justified actions based on sunk cost--so I learned that what is gone is gone, and what is left we should conserve, cherish, and employ wisely.

A similarly illogical argument for staying in Iraq is that chaos will follow any near-term U.S. withdrawal. The flaw lies not in the concept that chaos will happen, but rather in thinking that chaos will only happen if we withdraw in the near-term. Chaos will almost certainly follow any U.S. withdrawal, whether in 2008 or 2012.

I didn't say it was cheerful. But it is accurate. And Clarke, unlike most everyone else involved in discussing this mess, has one thing going for him. On top of his expertise, that is. For the past 15 years or so, he's one of the few people who can actually say he was right about al Qaeda. And Iraq. And the threat posed by Islamic extremism in general. So when he produces specific suggestions like this, we really ought to pay serious attention:

We can pursue our core interests in Iraq--ensuring that the country does not become a terrorist base and that it does not destabilize the rest of the region--without a large occupying force. To do this, we should announce our intention to reduce U.S. forces in Iraq beginning in December and concluding with the withdrawal of all major ground combat units within 18 months; declare that the United States seeks no permanent military bases in Iraq; gain permission from Kuwait to station additional combat units there to create an "over the horizon" capability to deal with terrorists in Iraq; accelerate the training and equipping of the Iraqi army with embedded Special Forces; work with our regional allies to create an enhanced covert action capacity to combat Iraq-based terrorism; speed up U.S. reconstruction efforts; and convene a regional process to guarantee the stability of Iraq, inviting Iran, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, and the Gulf countries to join.

Are there problems with this plan? Of course. But our current approach--maintaining that we can fix Iraq if we just try a bit harder--is likely more seriously flawed and more costly than the alternative. Still, President Bush insists on staying in Iraq, and it is easy to understand why. In The March of Folly, Barbara Tuchman documented repeated instances when leaders persisted in disastrous policies well after they knew that success was no longer an available outcome. They did so because the personal consequences of admitting failure would be very high. So they postponed the disastrous end to their policy adventures, hoping for a deus ex machina or to eventually shift the blame. There is no need to do that now. Everyone already knows who is to blame. It is time to stop the adventure, lower our sights, and focus on America's core interests. And that means withdrawal of major combat units.

Bring them home. The war in Iraq is merely a battle in a much longer war. We didn't win every battle in WWII, and we won't win every one in this war either. That's fine. Minimize the harm and move on to the next phase. Honor the fallen by making sure that none of their comrades who are with us today die needlessly. Honor their sacrifice by making sure their friends come home.

Bring them home. Now...