The best bad option.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Tilting at Windmills - Coalition Occupation of Iraq, 2003-, South Vietnamese social conditions - Column

I opposed the invasion of Iraq and have been pretty much in the cut-and-run camp since then. The counter-argument that gives me the most trouble is that, having upset the applecart, we have an obligation to stay until we put it back together. I was troubled by a similar argument about Vietnam: Even if we shouldn't have gotten involved, or never have escalated that involvement, we had led freedom-loving South Vietnamese to rely on us, and we should not bail out on them.

This argument had little resonance on the left because its basic article of faith was that all but the most corrupt South Vietnamese were closet Vietcong. The hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese who fled after the North took over have constituted a fact of history the left has never wanted to acknowledge.

I'm sure that a similar situation exists today. There are probably millions of Iraqis who, even though they don't like us, would prefer our staying to a civil war between the Shi'a and the Sunni that could follow our exit. So I do not doubt that unfavorable consequences may follow from our leaving. But Fin sure there am millions of other Iraqis who really, really hate us, and will keep on trying to kill our soldiers as long as we stay. I'm also sure that they and Islamic extremists everywhere will treat our departure as a victory, just as communists all over the world celebrated North Vietnam's triumph. Still, I think that we were right to leave Vietnam, and we will be right to leave Iraq.

Of course, we should make every effort to leave in a responsible and orderly manner. But we should...