Pay Now Or Pay Later

President Bush is to meet with his top security advisers today to discuss the situation in Iraq. "People always say to me, when are you going to bring the troops home," he said in a sound bite. "The answer is, as soon as possible. But not before the mission is completed."
That terminology couldn't help but summon up the image of the "mission accomplished" banner on the aircraft carrier where the President thanked the troops. What was it, about two years ago?
There's a saying among dentists and plumbers: Pay me now, or pay me later. Splurge for that expensive root canal or valve replacement now, or pay a more expensive price later for neglecting it.
Sooner or later we will have to face the reality of leaving Iraq without accomplishing very much at at all except for removing Saddam Hussein from power -- a seemingly goods result except when you consider that it cost the lives of 1,800 Americans and counting and tens of thousands of Iraqis we were supposed to be liberating, and that there is no way to ensure that a worse thug won't eventually rise to power.
The conflict in Iraq has essentially become a waiting game. The insurgents know that with every mass casualty attack our resolve weakens, and that's why they have launched their attacks not strategically, to weaken supply lines are disable air bases, but to inflict the highest death toll on the soldiers themselves. The insurgency grows stronger every day as a result.
If we acknowledge, as we must, that we will inevitably have to give up, the question then shifts to pay now or pay later. And later only amounts to the loss of more American lives.
Until now, I have felt that we have an obligation to the men and women who have died so far to continue the mission so that they will not have died in vain. That the real mission in Iraq was simply to stay the course, hold the forts and resist the impulse to run.
That was surely part of the rationale in Vietnam, too. We should now realize that our greater obligation is to the troops who have not yet died, and who will surely die if we stay, and to their families.
The only thing worse than making a mistake is failing to treat it like a mistake, failing to learn from it, and proceeding full ahead on the same mistaken course. Granted, if we pull out of Iraq under fire it will embolden our enemies, as it did after we left Beirut in the 80s and Somalia in the 90s.
There are two ways to address that. The first is to declare victory: Set a very public, very achievable goal that we can strive toward in the next few months -- say to put a certain number of trained police in place-- meet it and get out as ceremoniously as possible, not like the helicopter evacuation of Vietnam.
Second, make it clear to everyone, most of all ourselves, that we will do what every great people does and learn from our mistakes.
Israel's Ariel Sharon is no soft touch. For decades he was the most right-wing politician in the mainstream. And yet in his old age he has come to realize futility when he sees it, and to know that part of valor is knowing where to concentrate your troops. That's why he's letting go of Gaza as a necessary amputation to save the greater body. His loyalty is more to the 8,000 or so troops who have to defend this embattled territory than to the equal number of civilians who want to keep up the fight.
Our obligation to our own troops, and to ourselves, should be no less.