Middle East Institute Annual Conference
October 30, 2007, Washington DC
Clip 2, 1:53
"It ain't gonna be Rwanda, but it's gonna be Bosnia."


Referring to what a panelist in the earlier session said, and I mean, obviously it's hard for me to keep as attuned to the domestic political current here as I'd like, given that I live in Baghdad -- the bottom line is, it doesn't matter whether you're for or against this war, whether you agreed with the way it's been executed or not: you're stuck. I'm sorry, you've really screwed it.

Withdrawal now, even a phased withdrawal, will bear such consequence -- not for us, but for our children and their children. I can't even begin to imagine it. And that's not to mention what I call the moral dilemma for liberal America: okay, we want our boys and girls home, who doesn't? They want us out, you can understand that. It ain't gonna be Rwanda, but it's gonna be Bosnia. And that's what the top war planners tell me. And you're gonna leave a vacuum, and take a wild guess who's gonna fill it. And just think about the proxy war that will be fought.

Now, the previous panelist said that there won't be a regional war. That's right -- Saudi tanks aren't going to roll across the border, but everyone's already playing in Iraq. Everyone's already backing their horse; arming, funding, politically supporting. And the minute you drop down to 100,000, 75,000 troops -- that's only enough to keep your boys and girls alive. They won't be able to affect a thing. They can barely affect anything now.

It's the horrid reality of our time...because until we come up with a solution, we're stuck there.