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» LAT: How to stop genocide in Iraq (Samantha Power)

Perhaps the best thing to read today ... or this week ... or this year.

Conclusion:

Many of those who say U.S. troops should stay in Iraq to prevent genocide are the same people who for political reasons refuse to acknowledge the gravity of the calamity unfolding on our watch. The same people who modeled a war on best-case scenarios are now resisting ending a war by invoking worst-case scenarios. But after years of using the alleged needs of the Iraqi people to justify U.S. political postures, it is long past time to use the leverage we still have to actually advance Iraqi welfare.

Samantha Power is pretty close to where I am in my views these days. Staying (or worse - escalating) is a fool's bet. Unfortunately, the fool the American people voted into office in 2004 is upping the ante on that bet and sees that as the only path forward. Power could be clearer on the differences between the population that would like to see us leave and the political leadership of Iraq that's currently begging for us to stay and further their own aims. But it makes sense that there's a way to leverage a gradual drawdown of troops in Iraq to strengthen Iraq rather than to just assume it's an all-or-nothing gamble that, at present, has the administration down to it's boxer shorts at the poker table.