Although I disagree with Andrew Sullivan on a regular basis, I find him to be an interesting and, at times, thought provoking writer. In the foreign policy arena he has slowly come around on the Iraq issue and has shifted from being pro-invasion to now recognizing the various failings associated with the Bush Administration's policy towards that country.

Yesterday Sullivan posted a long piece titled "Re-Thinking The War I" that includes some thinking that I find quite worrying. Most troubling is the final passage of this post where he considers the ramifications of a possible/probable/likely Sunni-Shia'a conflict after a U.S. pullout:

"And: what benefits to the West could accrue from a brutal Sunni-Shi'a war in the Middle East? Yes, I know a withdrawal from Iraq will lead to statements of victory from al Qaeda. That would hurt. But ask yourself: what does bin Laden fear more in private? A continuing stalemate in Iraq that brings new recruits to his cause, exhausts the U.S. military, divides the American people, and keeps the narrative as one in which the "crusaders" are slaughtering Muslims in their own lands? Or a chaotic regional war in which the Muslim world is rent apart by sectarian warfare and in which the US and Israel are mere bystanders?"

There are two reasons, at least, to be deeply troubled by this type of thinking.
(1) From a ethical standpoint - the U.S. did break Iraq when it invaded....there is, at a minimum, an ethical/moral duty to reduce the prospects of more innocent deaths. Yes continued occupation will not work but that is not the only option - there are alternatives such as NEASFram that could allow for withdrawal without civil war. Leaving Iraq in a manner that ensures it will blow up is immoral.
(2) From a self serving standpoint - U.S. foreign policy thinkers should not be naive and think that there would be no security costs to a brutal civil war in Iraq and the region....chaos and violence and instability can lead to a host of foreseen and unforeseen problems. It is in the U.S. self-interest to avoid a civil war.

I hope Sullivan walks back from his thinking in this area - placing hundreds of thousands of people in a perilous situation because Bush broke Iraq is wrong any way you look at it.