Vote, declare victory and come home

0 Comments | Philadelphia Inquirer, The, January, 2005 | by Joseph L. Galloway

WASHINGTON - There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there may be only one good way out of the deepening disaster that is Iraq: Hold the elections on Jan. 30, declare victory and begin leaving.

Anything less, any more "staying the course," and we're likely doomed to an even bloodier and more costly defeat in a country divided along ethnic and religious fault lines and headed toward civil war.

A large number of Americans, perhaps even a majority, believe that pulling out now would lead to an American defeat that undermines U.S. credibility and endangers the global war on terrorism. They worry it would create either an Afghan-style terrorist haven in Iraq or an anti-American Shiite regime that would only be a new source of instability in the Mideast, a region...