Surprise: Pullout Proposal Lacking a Plan B

That’s the title of a piece in today’s Los Angeles Times that features interviews with a number of lawmakers that favor withdrawal…and most aren’t particularly concerned with the outcome for Iraq:

Lawmakers who have led the drive to bring troops home from Iraq have not devised a strategy to deal with the widespread killings that could follow a pullout, recent interviews with more than two dozen Democrats and Republicans show. Many of them acknowledge that Iraq may plunge into vicious sectarian fighting much like the ethnic cleansing that consumed Bosnia a decade ago. However, they said they would reject the use of U.S. troops to stop the killing. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s horrendous,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey (D-Wis.), who has helped spearhead efforts against the war. “The only hope for the Iraqis is their own damned government, and there’s slim hope for that.”

Obey seems like such a pleasant fellow. And caring too, in a let-God-sort-them-out kind of way. So what does Harry Reid say he’d do if violence increased dramatically following a U.S. withdrawal? “That’s a hypothetical. I’m not going to get into it.” Of course no one thinks it will remain a hypothetical, but in the sense that it hasn’t happened yet–Reid just won’t discuss events that will take place in the future. And my favorite comment comes from Rep. Lynn Woolsey of the Out of Iraq Caucus, “I believe, if we leave, the region will pull together,” she said. Woolsey’s assessment goes beyond hypothetical and into pure fantasy, she makes it sound like Iraq will turn into Middle East love-in if only the U.S. military would just get out of the way. Or how about this:

“The Out of Iraq caucus really has not looked beyond ending military involvement,” acknowledged Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a caucus leader and Pelosi ally. “Now that the environment is changing pretty significantly … everybody may be starting to look at what happens after the United States leaves.”

So their entire legislative program consists of pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq and none of them has really thought about what might happen if they got their way? It’s kind of hard to take these folks seriously, but they’re deadly serious about letting Iraqis slaughter each other.

“It will grow,” predicted Oregon Sen. Gordon H. Smith, one of three Senate Republicans backing the Democratic withdrawal plan. “But it will burn itself out. That’s how civil wars are fought. That’s just the brutal truth.”

Insurgencies burn themselves out, too, senator, just look at Anbar. And the best part about that…it’s al Qaeda that gets burned.

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