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OUR VIEW: Taking leave of Iraq, but role of U.S. isn't over n 'COMBAT' STATUS MAY HAVE ENDED BUT SITUATION IN BAGHDAD FRAGILE

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September 2, 2010

IT'S TIME TO TURN THE PAGE,"
PRESIDENT OBAMA SAID TUESDAY IN HIS OVAL OFFICE ADDRESS TO THE NATION TUESDAY TO MARK THE FORMAL END OF U.S. COMBAT OPERATIONS IN IRAQ AFTER MORE THAN seven years.

The United States "has paid a huge price" to give Iraqis the chance to shape their future, he said -- a cost that now includes more than 4,400 troops dead, tens of thousands more wounded and hundreds of billions of dollars spent at a time when the nation could ill afford it. Unspoken was the enormous price paid by the people of Iraq in the wake of the invasion of their nation.

While wisely avoiding any "Mission Accomplished" rhetoric, Obama made it clear that he believes an important corner has been turned. While there are still 50,000 U.S. troops stationed in Iraq, their combat role is over and they, too, are set to be withdrawn by the end of 2011 under an agreement brokered by the Bush administration.

We hope that the president is right, that this ill-begotten war is coming to a close and that the Iraqi government we leave behind is fully capable of looking after itself. But nothing during the course of our long stay in Iraq suggests that departing will be that easy.

Despite the Bush administration's hopes of transforming a "liberated" Iraq into a beacon of democracy, six months after its elections, Baghdad still has no government. There is still no law on how the oil revenues will be divided among the country's competing claimants. The Shiite militias and the Sunni insurgents have been quiet, but by no means have they disbanded. And an al-Qaida-linked terrorist group killed 56 people last week in a series of coordinated bombings. While Americans, thankfully, no longer are being killed in large numbers, the war continues to take a deadly toll on the people of Iraq.

At least publicly, the Obama administration hasn't addressed this question: What if the Iraqis ask the U.S military to stay on? After all, the Iraqis' top military commander thinks U.S. forces will be needed for another 10 years. More than 65 years after the end of World War II, Americans in uniform are still stationed in Europe and Japan; the same holds true for South Korea more than a half-century after the stalemated end to the war there.

One of the reasons the Bush administration doggedly pursued the war after it became clear we were there on false premises was to put to rest the Vietnam-related canard that if the going got tough enough the U.S. would cut and run. Still, last weekend Obama sounded close to washing his hands of the fate of post-U.S. Iraq: "Like any sovereign, independent nation, Iraq is free to chart its own course."

If only it were that easy. Recent history suggests otherwise. And then, there's Afghanistan ...




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