The humanitarian dilemma in Iraq

Kevin Drum has supplemented his original post on the absurdity of the chaos theories circulating about what might happen should America withdraw from Iraq. He makes a few points clear:

So here's what I think, as plainly as I can put it. First: I agree that if we leave Iraq the result will be an intensified civil war. Second: I agree that the bloodshed will be horrific.

But he goes on to contend that what we'll get if we stay is a slow, agonizing civil war that will take a similar toll. On this view, there is a defined amount of Iraqi blood that will be shed, and America's ongoing failure to quash sectarian fighting means that it will all be shed at some point. In other words, the genie is out of the bottle.

My fear, by contrast, is that an intensified civil war will vault us into new levels of depredation. Conflict has a dynamic all its own; there isn't some fixed amount of blood waiting to be spilled. I do not believe that we can lightly permit what Drum concedes will be a more intense civil war.