Iraq debate.

I read The Progressive because it is willing to present two sides of an issue, and although I am heavily biased toward immediate withdrawal of American troops and contractors, I read Erik K. Gustafson's piece thoroughly ("Abandonment of Iraq Is Wrong," June issue).

As it is with the American political system generally, two sides just aren't sufficient. Perhaps Gustafson is right that Iraq needs a continuing police presence until the nation stabilizes, but it need not be American. American troops and contractors should be withdrawn immediately. If that might result in a destabilized Iraq and civil war--and I remain unconvinced that civil war would actually be worse than the current American military occupation--then it should be somebody else doing the policing. The U.N., perhaps, or a coalition of Arab states, but not the United States.

The Bush League started this war to take control of Iraqi oil for Texas oilmen. There is no way American troops and contractors under its command can ever establish the on-the-ground credibility necessary to end the violence.

Douglas Campbell 

Ferndale, Michigan 

Gustafson's article was the best articulation yet of his position that I have seen or heard. Still, I am uncomfortable that he believes that some good can be done by U.S. personnel. U.S. credibility is (justifiably) almost nonexistent most places but here, and the U.S. military, and armies in general, don't exist for making peace.

Jim Haber

San Francisco, California 

Thank you for that excellent assessment of the situation in Iraq by Gustafson. At least when liberals start wars, we do our best to finish them. Can anyone imagine FDR or Woodrow Wilson declaring war and then wandering off to the countryside to chat with the locals about their retirement plans? The Republicans are so dazzled by their military prowess that they have lost track of the fact that they haven't won a shooting war since Lincoln's day. Just how easy did Bush and the rest of the country think invading a country was going to be?

Far from representing the political fringe, articles like this one are the voice of reality. Keep them coming.

Kay Reimers

Fellow Springs, Ohio

Gustafson shows a deep commitment to peace and justice. But his reasoning is flawed in that he fails to see the big, lethal picture.

As wrongheaded and evil as the Bush Administration's Iraq invasion is, it is but one tactic in a much larger scheme. Bush and his confederates aim for nothing less than domination of the Middle East and the world's oil resources.

For the U.S. military to remain in Iraq and to eventually bleed that nation into submission would be but one step in their nefarious strategy. A Bush victory in Iraq would lead to other conflicts--in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Nothing less than a bloody nose and an ignominious defeat a la Vietnam will stop the Bush Administration's drive toward world domination.

Alvin Levine

Bradenton, Florida 

While it may seem very leftist and even "revolutionary" to demand, "U.S. out of Iraq now!" should we not also consider what may happen to the opponents of the former Saddam regime and the other democratic, left, and secular forces in Iraq who are right now the victims of terrorist attacks carried out by insurgent Saddamist and reactionary Islamic thugs? Would these people not be exposed to greater danger if U.S. troops left abruptly? Last January, Iraqi voters were able to elect members to a national assembly who also advocated an end to the U.S. occupation, but were careful not to demand that it be done immediately.

On June 1, the Iraqi Prime Minister Ibraham al Jaafari announced that he had requested the United Nations to extend the stay of the occupation forces "until we have defeated terrorism and restored security across the country." Should this not be an objective that American progressives can also support while, at the same time, we seek to oppose U.S. imperialist interests from gaining the upper hand in Iraq?

It would not be amiss for us in America to pay more attention to the views of progressive Iraqi spokesmen such as Abdullah Muhsin, who is a longtime fighter against Saddam and is now a representative of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in London. In an interview with Matt Harwood (posted on Alternet.org), Muhsin stated:

"Our priority is to keep Iraq together and make sure that extremism does not take hold in Iraq.... Our brothers and sisters in the peace movement should understand this and support us now. There's no point in saying that Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair were wrong about the war. And because the war was illegal, therefore now we have to turn Iraq into anarchy and chaos in order to prove Bush and Blair wrong at the cost of the Iraqi people and destroy Iraq as a country."

Many of us in the U.S. are concerned for the anti-Saddamist Iraqis whose lives would be endangered by the insurgent terrorists if the American troops were pulled out now.

Sid Resnick

Hamden, Connecticut