Our political leadership, congressional and presidential, has turned the most urgent and critical issue facing our nation into a an exercise in sound bite governance and diplomacy. “Cut and run” and “stay the course” compete with “bring the troops home” and “support our troops” as empty slogans masquerading as policy. The nation deserves a well developed and nuanced approach towards this very difficult problem but instead we are getting simple minded pronouncements that are more political posturing rather than leadership, statesmanship, or governance.

All parties concede the following about the Iraq quagmire:

• a reasonable level of safety and security must be established.
• safety and security cannot be established by military action alone.
• safety and security requires a comprehensive diplomatic and political solution.
• a full military withdrawal before safety and security are established would be a debacle likely resulting in the catastrophic failure of the Iraqi state.
• a failed Iraqi state would descend into unrestrained civil war, become a safe haven for Al Qaeda, and possibly lead to an unraveling of what remaining stability there is in the Middle East.
• this scenario would likely require our military involvement again.

Yet the debate inside the beltway, if you can call it that, is whether to bring the military home or not. It has been already established that withdrawing the military from Iraq before there is a sustainable level of safety and security is only going to cause larger problems for the U.S on a global scale and probably here at home also.

Democrats need to stop trying to sell immediate withdrawal. Offering the opposite of what the Republicans propose is not policymaking. It’s knee-jerk politics. Republicans need to stop offering empty platitudes about staying the course. Continuing to repeatedly do the same thing while hoping for different results is not policymaking either. It’s desperate wishing while in a state of denial. It’s also the mark of a fool.

The President needs to swallow his pride, accept that U.S. is unable to unilaterally impose security in Iraq, develop a coordinated diplomatic and political solution, and make that the administration’s primary thrust. That means dealing with Iran and Syria to a certain degree. It may be distasteful to do so but they are the regional players with the most at stake in the outcome and an unrestrained Iraqi civil war is not in their best interest either. Keeping a low-grade civil war brewing that bogs down the U.S. military is.

We can’t immediately withdraw, though I wish we could. America made a promise to the average Iraqi to not leave them to the wolves, be they Sunni, Shia, or Al-Qaeda. We would do even more damage to our battered reputation and integrity to abandon Iraq after having gone in roughshod the way we did.

I’m not suggesting we go in with overwhelming force either, ala the Powell Doctrine, because President Bush repeatedly missed those opportunities long ago and it is now simply too late for that. Both nations are running out of patience with the war.

The reasons we invaded Iraq were thin, twisted, and resulted in bait and switch justifications from the Bush administration. However there are compelling reasons to stay in Iraq until we can reasonably expect that it’s not going to implode. But we must forge ahead with a sensible and nuanced policy that is rooted in diplomacy, realpolitik, and a more thoughtful application of military force.

If we leave Iraq to descend into civil war and wash our hands of the whole mess, it will be the harbinger of America’s permanently decreased moral stature in the world. Our credibility would be heavily damaged. Our ability to lead would be hampered by the global memory of what we did for generations. We would no longer be the world’s policeman, but rather its dirty cop.