LONDON — The New York Times has been wrong on Iraq for so long that it has become a tradition, and they respect tradition at the Times. Its Monday (July 9) editorial calling for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq caused a great stir in the United States: "It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit."
But an "orderly exit" is not a real option anymore, and in any case that is not where the logic of American politics leads in the short run.
It would still be possible to get the 160,000 American troops out of Iraq without scenes reminiscent of the U.S. retreat from the Chosin Reservoir in Korea (1950), let alone the British retreat from Kabul (1842). There would be embarrassing TV clips as jubilant Iraqi mobs looted the Green Zone, but the token British force in Basra and the U.S. troops holding the supply lines up to Baghdad can still get out southward via Kuwait, while the bulk of the American force could withdraw north to the friendly territory of Kurdistan and evacuate by air from there.