To balance the interesting, but somewhat alarmist, Hersh piece in the New Yorker read George Packer's short bit in the journal's latest issue. Packer wrote the standard-bearer book on the war, The Assasin's Gate. It's nice to read such pragmatic commentary on the problems of withdrawal from someone other than Kagan or Kristol. As Packer points out, there are few who look at this question seriously and realistically, with most choosing instead to hide from the harsh realities of the ground behind political and ideological agendas of little relevance.

Packer points out an extremely interesting phenomenon, one of which I have recently become aware but have not yet put into words: the way, over the last year or two, so many liberals and left-leaning Democrats have become policy realists on the Iraq issue, framing the question of withdrawal in terms of American national interests without considering deeply its important humanitarian implications. And, while the neo-cons themselves have never had much regard for questions of humanitarian intervention, Kagan et al now present a case against withdrawal exactly in such terms. Perhaps they do so (similiarly to how they foisted upon us the ex post facto humitarian justification for invasion) in order to sell their interest-based agenda to a broader American base. Regardless, the burden is now squarely upon liberal Democrats who advocate withdrawal to explain, once all-out ethnic and religious slaughter commences in our absence, upon what grounds this withdrawal was justified. One of the most thoughtful left-wing warriors I know (more of a communist than anything) tried to sell me the argument the other day that he'd rather see Iraqis slaughtering each other than young American troops dying in a meaningless war. Is that the thinking behind advocates of withdrawal? If so, the Left has strayed far from its universalistic, humanitarian principles...