By Peter Ryan

In Washington D.C. the battle lines are slowly being drawn. Previously, though most Democrats have been critical of President Bush's Iraq policy, most have been extremely reluctant to call for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. armed forces. Partly, no doubt, for fear of being charged with the crime of "not supporting our troops" or desiring to "cut and run."

Even though most Americans, according to recent polls, disagree with the President's handling of Iraq it is still a "hot potato" topic for elected officials. Of course, their unwillingness to urge an end to the occupation is not wholly a matter of political cowardice: many Democrats and Republicans are genuinely concerned about the future of Iraq and fear the consequences of a full withdrawal. The truth is, nobody knows what will happen if we remain in Iraq. And no one knows what will happen if we leave.

But John Murtha's recent call for immediate troop redeployment could be a watershed. Murtha, hardly a "peacenik," served in Vietnam and, unlike Senator Kerry and many others, made no protests against that war when his service was completed. In Congress, Murtha has been the most hawkish of Democrats and, at the time, fully supported President Bush's decision to invade Iraq. With such credentials, it should be obvious to any observer that Murtha is not making his proposal lightly or due to some superficial partisan agenda. His "conversion" is likely to spurn even more media attention and more serious debate than Cindy Sheehan's campaign.

And if other Democrats rally to Murtha's side the congressional battle over Iraq is liable to heat up considerably. If they fail to follow his "call-to-arms" the political cost could be significant. Their neutrality on the question of withdrawal is putting them increasingly out-of-step with the base of their own party.

No analyst of sound mind and good conscience can now argue that the U.S. hasn't made enormous strategic errors in its handling of Iraq. From disbanding the Iraqi army to failing to prevent the mass looting of Iraqi museums to the continuing scandal surrounding the torture of inmates, the occupation has been riddled with humiliating moral and tactical defeats. It is also beyond question that our intelligence on Iraq was faulty (to say the least). Though we can argue over semantics about whether or not Bush also "lied" during his campaign to build public support for the war, it would be hard to deny that he actively deceived us-something we've come to expect from elected officials on both sides of the aisle.

But whether we should remain or withdraw is still a question on which honest and intelligent people disagree. Either route-to "stay the course" or "cut and run"-could be perilous. Either route is guaranteed to offer high human, economic and political costs.

The Bush administration and many in Congress have been resistant even to the idea of setting a projected deadline for troop withdrawal. They promise that they will remove troops "when the job is done." Or when the Iraqi army is ready to "stand up." In other words: when Iraq is fully secure. Which, in all probability-if it is even achievable-will take decades and drain billions every year from the U.S. treasury.

Rumsfeld, in one attempt to give reporters an accurate estimate of how long it would take to fight off insurgents explained that "insurgencies tend to go on 5, 6, 8, 10, 12 years." I doubt many of the reporters he was speaking to slept well that night.

Let's be honest: we can't keep this up forever. Does anyone truly believe that the U.S. government can sustain political support indefinitely for an already unpopular war? Do we have the will to stay in Iraq for another ten years?

According to Iraq's best known polling organization, 80% of Iraqis want US and other foreign forces to stop patrolling their cities and make their presence less visible by withdrawing to bases. Forty-one per cent would feel safer if U.S. forces left Iraq altogether, and only 32% would feel less safe. As the occupation drags on and civilian casualties mount, these figures will likely grow increasingly unfavorable toward the U.S. military presence in Iraq.

Partly this is due to a largely unreported fact: more Iraqi civilians have been killed by the U.S. military than have been killed by Iraqi insurgents. So, as angry as most Iraqi citizens must be over the merciless and horrendous terrorist attacks committed by Zarqawi and his ilk they have, in a way, even more to fear from the presence of U.S. troops on Iraqi soil. In a recent study by the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder it was revealed that 28% of U.S. soldiers in Iraq reported being responsible for the death of a noncombatant. Terrorist actively target civilians. U.S. soldiers presumably avoid civilian deaths at all costs. But if an Iraqi is statistically more likely to be killed by a U.S. soldier than an insurgent, you can probably forgive Iraqis for being eager to see our soldiers withdraw.

And if the occupation is unpopular in Iraq, it is also increasingly unpopular in the United States. 60 percent of Americans now believe that we should not have invaded Iraq. Bush's overall approval rating is a mere 37 percent-the lowest of his entire presidency. Will Americans see the occupation in Iraq more favorably when another thousand soldiers lose their lives? Or when it adds another hundred billion to our national deficit? Unless we make miraculous progress in Iraq within the next year, confidence in the war will continue to decrease. You can't wage a war without public support any more than you can fire a gun without ammunition.

Rather than hide from the inevitable, we should be honest with ourselves and with the world: we can't stay in Iraq forever. At a minimum, setting a "hoped for" or "expected" deadline for withdrawal-say two or three years-would establish realistic expectations for Iraqis and Americans alike.

To Iraqis, it would confirm that the U.S. has no desire to make its presence permanent. It would also increase the pressure on Iraq to make reasonable and adequate security preparations according to an agreed upon timeline. It wouldn't make this task any easier-but at least they would know what they were up against.

For the U.S. military, it would create the opportunity to make strategies and plans that fit within a realistic time frame rather than allowing them to operate under the false assumption that the U.S. presence in Iraq can continue indefinitely with a bottomless pit for a budget. For better or worse, ten years is clearly unrealistic. Even two or three year more years is arguably ill-advised. But a decade, under current conditions, is sheer fantasy. The American people, right or wrong, simply will not stand for it.

The truth is President Bush and the occupation of Iraq are wedded in history. A withdrawal of troops from Iraq would be tantamount to political suicide for Bush, the equivalent of admitting defeat. Bush has no great domestic achievements on which to base his legacy. A failed Iraq would mean a failed presidency.

Bush's position on Iraq cannot and will not change. Instead it is congress-and the peoples of Iraq, America and Britain-who must ultimately resolve this debate.

Unfortunately, it seems as though our primary reasons both for remaining and exiting Iraq are selfish.

The Middle East is the location of our largest economic interest: oil. Without it, our economy would screech to a halt. Iraq, if it were to become a "safe haven for terrorists" (which, of course, it already has) would be a huge blow to U.S. interests. On the flip side, a permanent allied government in Iraq, sprinkled with fully equipped U.S. bases would be a strategic advantage. Sure to make a few troublesome neighbors-say, the Syrian Ba'athists and the Iranian theocracy-feel deservedly ill-at-ease.

Plus, if we were to "succeed" in Iraq we could all feel good about ourselves. After all we liberated a country, incarcerated a dictator and birthed a fledging democracy. But to do this we must resist the popular will of the Iraqi people-the majority of whom would like us to leave or, at the very least, minimize our presence to such a degree that we would have little control over day-to-day security operations.

The counter-argument: Iraq is way too expensive. Our two most precious commodities-money and human lives-are being spent at a furious pace. According to Democratic congressmen and Vietnam veteran John P. Murtha we should leave because the Iraqis can ask no more of us. Our burden has been met. "Our military has done everything that has been asked of them," Murtha announced Thursday, "the Iraqi people and the emerging government must be put on notice: the United States will immediately deploy." He added that deployment must not be on a "schedule which can be changed" or on a "schedule which is controlled by Iraqis."

Those who want to remain in Iraq make it sound like they're doing Iraqis a favor even though most Iraqis want us to leave. Those who want us to exit Iraq now seem to be saying that we should do so without even consulting the Iraqi government.

One simple fact needs to be acknowledged: the U.S. can't stay in Iraq forever. Every effort must be made to work with the Iraqi government to develop a realistic timetable for withdrawal.

We can't stay forever. Nor should we.

The debate over Iraq needs to take a new form. The real question isn't whether we leave now or stay forever. The real question is: should we leave in 2006 or 2008?

Let's hope that whatever plans we make to withdraw are more thoroughly analyzed-and based on better intelligence-than the plans we made to invade in the first place.