Iraq: Roll 'Em Up! Move 'Em Out!

News article reports that U.S. troops are now completely withdrawn from Iraqi cities.

This withdrawal has been happening with very little noise hasn’t it?  I mean this is a major milestone in the foreign policy of President Obama.  Although there have been reports of recent bombings in in Baghdad and increased attacks as the troops have been pulling back, it has not been the doomsday results that hawkish conservatives predicted would happen if the U.S. entrusted security operations to the Iraqi Security Forces.  And I believe that the attacks were sproadic, unorganized efforts to score big because insurgents knew they were weak, rather than a calculated series of attacks that demonstrated that insurgents were strong, and not going anywhere.  Like a wounded animal, the insurgents are only lashing out in the face of a slow demise.

Thus far, withdrawal is proving to be a great policy choice:

1) The U.S. never should have been in Iraq in the first place.  Leaving responsibly returns international respect for fixing the mistake as best as possible, giving the U.S. political capital later down the road should their be additional lee-way that it will need in say, Afghanistan.  Also leaving responsibly ensures the U.S. is not resented anymore than it already is by leaving abruptly and leaving Iraq to solve problems created largely by the U.S. presence and vacuum left after dethroning Hussein.

2) It has been largely uninteresting and un-newsworthy: in politics that can be a GOOD thing.  I like to think that when a process is doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing, you may not even notice the process at all.  Think of Iraq as you would your kitchen sink.  When you water begins to run funny, you look at the pipes under the sink.  When all is running well, you have no reason to check the pipes.  

Even though their are troops still there, the process of removal has been ignored in my opinion.  That is a sign that everything is going just as planned.  There will be more of a challenge in securing the borders and eradicating safehavens in the more rural parts of the country, but being able to relinquish control of the metropolitan areas to Iraqi Security Forces has come before the June 30th deadline.  

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