The Iraq Choice

As Kevin Drum notes, a major choice is looming in Iraq:

"It's easy to overstate the problem here, but there is a problem. The Shiite slate is clearly going to win the January elections, and as Spencer points out, there's only one plank in the UIA platform that its leaders consider important enough to discuss publicly: a desire to get U.S. troops out of Iraq.

"At the same time, democracy promoting neocons like Kristol not only don't want U.S. troops to leave, they want to widen the conflict: to Syria right now and eventually to Iran and possibly Saudi Arabia — which 'may ultimately be more serious than the Syria problem.' But that can't happen unless U.S. troops have a permanent presence in Iraq.

"Sometime next year this will come to a head. Do we leave Iraq if a democratically elected government asks us to? Or do we stick around in order to eventually bring the rest of the Middle East to heel? Stay tuned."