"All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means."

I have never been so proud to be a Pennsylvanian — particularly a Western Pennsylvanian — as I am right now. (It ought to be noted at this point that I'm a relatively recent transplant, and wasn't around for the Steel Curtain era, when the Steelers won four Super Bowls in six years.)

It's all because of Jack Murtha. He had the guts to say that our troops' occupation of Iraq isn't contributing to stability in the region. National and homeland security blogger William Arkin sums it up well: "Withdrawal is not retreat." Murtha's plan calls for a pursuit of a more stable Iraq through diplomatic means, with a strategically positioned force outside Iraq. In other words, if we pull out and the Iraqi regime proves to be incapable of governing in accordance with the recently approved constitution, then we can leverage things to go back in, this time (hopefully) with international support, and be in a good position to reoccupy Iraq.

One argument for departure: the American presence is just irritating the insurgents. Consider these comments by Eric Margolis, made on the Friday edition of CNN's "Live From." (Emphasis mine.)

ERIC MARGOLIS, JOURNALIST/AUTHOR: ... You know, we declared victory there a few years ago and said everything was fine, but it's not because, well, we haven't been watching very carefully. The Afghans -- Afghanistan is a mess. We have not been able to establish a politically solid national government in Afghanistan and, as we're finding in Iraq, the longer our troops stay there, we have 20,000 troops now combing the countryside for Bin Laden, the longer we stay, the more they become irritants and in the eyes of the Afghans, and the Afghans are very naturalistic [Transcription error - nationalistic?] people who don't like foreigner are starting to turn against us in larger numbers.

PHILLIPS: Do you feel that Kabul will fall completely if U.S. troops left right now?

MARGOLIS: Yes, if we stop protecting the Karzai regime it would be a matter of days if not hours before he is thrown out. You know President Karzai is protected by 100 American bodyguards. He goes nowhere without them. He can't trust his own people. That, to me, is the most telling indication of how wobbly things are in Afghanistan.

Doesn't that sound familiar? The Green Zone in Baghdad? The assassination of lawyers participating in Saddam Hussein's defense? The Soviet/Afghan War?

As for cons, Iraq veteran Ginmar nails it:

I frankly don't think leaving Iraq is a good idea, for this reason: if us leaving was what the insurgents wanted, they'd know that fighting our soldiers and killing innocent civilians would be the one thing guaranteed to keep us there. Fighting and killing is what they're there for. Who will they fight and kill once we leave? These are radicalized young men; for the first time in their life, they have power and it's the power of intimidation. Who will they turn that on once we leave?

The comments to the entry are well worth reading, too.

In other words, we're in this horrid catch-22 situation. Staying provides fuel for the insurgents. Leaving ... well, I think the best thing I can do is quote the Council on Foreign Relations' Jane Arraf.

ARRAF: You know, when you have to figure out what Iraqis actually feel, it's a very tangled web that you have to unweave. And although most Iraqis would tell you that they want American troops to leave immediately, when you scratch the surface, there's a real fear there as to what would happen, if they actually did leave tomorrow. ... What would happen in the places that I've seen, the places that are the most volatile, the places where there is still fighting going on, the places where there are no Iraqi troops, where there are no Iraqi police, no Iraqi government, is there would be vacuums in those places and the insurgents would come back in, and the cities and towns would be taken over again. It's something we've seen over and over. It would be extremely worrying if troops left tomorrow or anytime soon in large areas of Iraq.

The rest of Arraf's remarks on torture and the atmosphere in Iraq are, if you'll pardon the expression, illuminating. Why couldn't we have decided we were going to spread democracy via superior statesmanship and not arms? Sigh. Also, let's not ignore the fact that the Iraqi constitution — supposedly the foundation of democracy in Iraq — may be fruit of the poisoned tree, with a big scary Trojan horse: the article that says no laws that contravene Sharia law may be passed.

The problem is not with Islam, the problem is with the dozens of interpretations of Islamic rules and principles. Islam is like any other religion in that its holy book and various teachings may be interpreted in different ways. In Iraq we see this firsthand because we have ample example of varying Islamic interpretations from two neighbors- Iran and Saudi Arabia. Who will decide which religious rules and principles are the ones that shouldn’t be contradicted by the constitution?

If our troops haven't been fighting and dying to "cut and run" ... have they been giving up their lives (in multiple senses) to create a nation where freedoms are subject to being interpreted away? This is another catch-22: the commitment to religious freedom is enshrined in the American constitution, even if Ann Coulter doesn't have much use for that part of it. (Seriously. It's in her book, too.) So it's hard to feel like I have much room to be upset about that little loophole. Even if my country's blood and money is enabling it.

No matter how folks try to spin it, don't buy the line that Democrats had their chance to pull out of Iraq and didn't. The difference between Rep. Hunter's plan and Rep. Murtha's plan isn't just semantics. Murtha's plan had actual strategy; Hunter's simply expressed "the sense of the House." And strategy is something that the Republicans have been accusing the Democrats of lacking since, well, Kosovo in 1999.

Then-Governor Bush's quote is particularly choice: "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is."

My bottom-line opinion? Being able to pull the troops out of Iraq right now would be ideal. But even if you think our involvement in Iraq is motivated strictly by concern for the price of oil and Halliburton's profit margin, or maybe the president's pride, departing now would leave a vacuum for the insurgency. Having put the Iraqis in this position, we owe them something better than that, whether it's achieved through force of arms or by "other means."