Editorial - Iraq Ranked Second Among World's Failed States

Iraq is crawling to the top of the list of the world's worst failed states, second only to Sudan, according to a report released today by Foreign Policy magazine. Iraq has climbed to the no. 2 position from position 4, which they occupied last year. On page 367 of the 9/11 Commission Report, the commissioners warn that a failed state in Iraq could make it a haven for terrorists, and a vector for terrorists to attack Americans at home.

This spring's surge deployment of 30,000 U.S. Troops was an effort by the Bush Administration to keep Iraq from sliding further into disarray. Anyone who can read or watch television news knows the only thing this troop surge has accomplished is more dead Americans; 443 have been killed in the last 5 months, pushing the total to 3,524.

I don't think that our military community's morale can tolerate many more casualties or deaths; we're soon going to find ourselves in the same situation our military was in during the late 1970's. Vietnam had cleared the military's ranks of professional soldiers with actual combat experience, and discouraged our country's upstanding citizens from joining the military; leaving only the dregs of society. During the late 70's there are reports of officers needing escort from armed MPs just so they could inspect their troops, and drugs ran rampant. If Iraq becomes a fully-failed state, U.S. Troop deaths will only continue to rise, military recruitment will grind-to-a-halt, standards for new recruits will continue to be lowered, and we will find our military in the state we found it in from 1973-1980; the lowest state of readiness in our modern military history.

If the Bush Administration doesn't find some way to stabilize Iraq before they leave office in disgrace (only 580 days left!) then our next President should immediately withdraw our troops to protected Kurdish areas in the north of Iraq, and leave the rest of the country to sort themselves out. At this point our being there is more of a hindrance than a help to these people. We should just leave Iraq to the Iraqis, and be prepared to deploy from friendly Kurdish areas to put out "fires", at the request of whatever Iraqi government is in place.

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