Briefing Book: How to Get Out of Iraq

"Throughout the campaign, Barack Obama vowed that one of his first actions as president would be to issue a new order to military to end the war in Iraq. Since his resounding electoral victory, however, there has been a quiet campaign among the foreign-policy establishment and parts of the military to roll back those promises. This would be a mistake. The argument for a significant, early withdrawal of U.S. combat forces remains overwhelming. Indeed, a failure to deliver on the promise of early U.S. withdrawals is the most likely thing to cause a rapid deterioration in conditions in Iraq.
Those who warn that security gains in Iraq are fragile and reversible are correct, even if they argued the contrary before the election. We should be under no illusions that Iraq will be stable or peaceful, or that its political divides have been overcome. As Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress and I argued in September, beneath the superficial veneer of improved security upon which most Americans have focused, Iraq continues to be torn apart by deep divides over ethnicity and religion and by escalating battles between political insiders and popular forces. Despite some promising developments, little political reconciliation has taken place since the "surge" began. "
FP ~Abu Aardvark