What to do about Iraq?

I'm certainly not afraid to admit that I have no idea what the best option is. Neither do a lot of experts. It's a matter of choosing the least-bad option at this point, and I don't know what that is.

It seems to be easier for Iraq boosters. They get to chastise critics for having no solutions without presenting any of their own-- the default being, presumably, "at least we're doing something by staying the course/fighting for victory." But it's now clear that that's no solution at all. The status quo is a dismal failure. But as The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum points out, that's all they've got.

There is, at this point, not much question that an American withdrawal from Iraq would lead to massive bloodshed, a Shiite theocracy, and considerably enhanced influence for Iran in the Middle East. It would be a debacle almost without parallel.

And yet, like most other critics, [The New Republic's Lawrence] Kaplan offers no better answer. In fact, he gives the game away with a comparison to Vietnam (something that's apparently OK for conservatives):

Then, as now, responsibility for the war's outcome lay squarely with its architects. But the war's aftermath also bloodied the hands of critics who insisted on walking away without condition and regardless of consequence. The genocide that followed in Cambodia and the spectacle of Vietnam's reeducation camps will not be repeated in Iraq. But ask any American officer there and he will tell you that, absent U.S. forces, Iraq's ditches will fill rapidly as the death toll multiplies tenfold.

But this is exactly the problem, isn't it? We stayed in force in Vietnam for nearly a decade, and we still couldn't accomplish our goals. Should we have stayed another decade?

I agree with Drum that an important point has been lost in the shuffle: this debate is so intense and venomous only because the "war's architects" screwed up so completely. Yet no one is calling for accountability, they're still running the show, and they're plan seems no more sophisticated than to keep pursuing a plan that's already failed. And that really is no solution at all.