It’s Time to Leave Iraq Once and For All

It’s Time to Leave Iraq Once and For All

The United States needs to accede to the will of the Iraqi people and finally put our wars to rest.

Katrina vanden Heuvel
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

The question of Iraq—whether we should leave or stay—again looms over a US presidential election. In 2016, President Trump was elected in part because he promised to end endless wars and bring US forces home from Iraq and other Middle East conflicts.

But the United States now has more boots on the ground in Iraq and Syria than when he was nominated. And Trump himself is now leading the forever war lobby arguing that US forces must stay in Iraq in defiance of the Iraqi request for them to leave.<

Trump’s broken promise on Iraq will hurt him in the 2020 election, and, given his narrow margin of victory in key battleground states, it could be the reason for his defeat. But the Democrats should not rest on this prospect alone. They should actively make it happen by convincing the public (or more precisely, those Americans who voted for Trump in 2016 because of his position on endless wars) that they can deliver when Trump could not.

Read the full text of Katrina’s column.

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Katrina vanden Heuvel Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of The Nation, America’s leading source of progressive politics and culture. She served as editor of the magazine from 1995 to 2019.


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