Iraq needs a deadline.

Byline: The Register-Guard

The sheepishly noncommittal congressional debate over President Bush's troop surge plan for Iraq serves as a disheartening reminder that the nation's leaders lack the courage to confront the real problem: The United States needs a realistic Iraq exit strategy.

Whether the addition of 21,500 U.S. troops succeeds in restoring a semblance of security to Baghdad or fails to arrest Iraq's descent into chaos pales in comparison to the question of what the United States should do next, regardless of the surge's outcome.

Some facts that bear on the decision are not in dispute:

Public support for the war is crumbling. A solid majority of Americans in every recent poll favor setting a deadline for withdrawing U.S. troops, even if civil order hasn't been restored in Iraq.

The civil war ravaging Iraq - as distinct from the insurgency targeting U.S. occupation forces - is a complex, multidimensional sectarian conflict. The weak, Shiite-controlled government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki has neither the will nor the means to impose a solution acceptable to all.

U.S. military support of the al-Malaki government is viewed by many Sunni Iraqis as proof the United States has taken the Shiite side in the civil war. This fuels public support for the insurgency and drives Sunnis into the arms of foreign jihadists and al-Qaeda.

The Iraq war is damaging U.S. interests in the Middle East as it enhances the influence of Iran.

U.S. intelligence confirms a resurgence of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. The debilitating stalemate in Iraq ties up political and military resources that otherwise could be used to secure Afghan- istan.

In light of what's painfully obvious about the situation in Iraq, military and foreign affairs experts are beginning to converge on a pragmatic strategy to extricate U.S. forces from Bush's botched war. The Council on Foreign Relations, an internationally respected nonpartisan organization that analyzes foreign policy issues, has issued a special report urging the United States to "make clear now to the Iraqi government that, as the results of the anticipated surge become apparent, the two sides will begin to negotiate a U.S. military disengagement from Iraq."

The disengagement would entail withdrawing the bulk of U.S. combat forces by the end of 2008, "shifting the American focus to containment of the conflict and strengthening the U.S. military position elsewhere in the region."

James Fearon, a professor of political science at Stanford, argues in an article in Foreign Affairs magazine that having the U.S. military prop up the weak al-Malaki government feeds the perception among opponents that the government would fall without U.S. support. That serves to strengthen the resolve of insurgents, who are willing to wait years, if necessary, for an opportunity to seize power. "U.S. military intervention in Iraq," Fearon says, "is thus unlikely to produce a government that can survive by itself whether the troops stay 10 more months or 10 more years."

William Odom, a retired Army lieutenant general who was head of Army intelligence and director of the National Security Agency under President Ronald Reagan, is an ardent advocate of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. In a column originally written for The Washington Post and published Feb. 11 in The Register-Guard, Odom said, "The first and most critical step is to recognize that fighting on now simply prolongs our losses and blocks the way to a new strategy. Getting out of Iraq is the precondition for creating new strategic options.

`Withdrawal will take away the conditions that allow our enemies in the region to enjoy our pain."

Critics of a rapid withdrawal claim that removing U.S. forces will lead to an even greater disaster than the one unleashed by Bush's catastrophic decision to launch an unnecessary invasion. The sad truth is that there's little reason left to believe that the sacrifice of additional American lives and limbs can fundamentally alter the course of events in Iraq.

As Odom and scores of military and foreign policy experts now agree, the way forward in Iraq can't be found until our troops are on the way home. Every day that Congress shirks its responsibility to set a deadline for ending the Iraq debacle is another day that more American families will experience the heartbreaking consequences of that indifference.