Superb analysis of Iraq War by conservative scholar

Robert Higgs of The Independent Institute responds to the news headline “Citing Vietnam, Bush Warns of Carnage if U.S. Leaves Iraq”:

what does he [President Bush] suppose will happen if U.S. forces do not leave Iraq? Surely the answer must be: carnage on a vast scale, carnage with no end in sight. Regardless of how deeply the president may immerse himself in wishful thinking, no other outcome may reasonably be expected.

Bush reminded the listeners of his “carnage warning” speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City that when U.S. forces pulled out of Vietnam, “the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens.” So it was. Yet, once the U.S. forces had done what they had done prior to 1973, what would have happened had they remained in Vietnam, continuing to carry on their war business as usual? The only reasonable answer is: more of the same, on a vast scale-carnage that would have continued as long as U.S. forces remained in the country.

In Iraq, as in Vietnam earlier, we must expect that if U.S. forces were to leave, more carnage would occur. It is conceivable that the Iraqis would devise a way to settle their differences without enormous violence, but the odds now seem greatly against their doing so. Ultimately, of course, they would find a way; no society can persist forever in a state of civil war on the scale that now prevails in Iraq. Yet many more people are almost certain to die and to suffer wounds and the destruction of property before a peaceful resolution is effected. And that resolution itself may be dreadful in other regards. The United States, however, cannot prevent this distressing outcome. Indeed, its invasion and occupation have created conditions that make such an outcome virtually unavoidable. In short, the U.S. adventure in Iraq cannot have a happy ending. Just because the president unleashed the demons now raging across Iraq does not mean that he or anyone else can chain them now.

Unless the U.S. forces leave, however, their containment will never really get started, because aside from a small group of collaborators and puppet officials, all Iraqis agree on the desirability of getting U.S. and other foreign forces out of the country.