When Should the U.S. Start Pulling Troops Out of Iraq?

Edward Luttwak, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Washington

As long as we realise we are doing no bloody good by being there . . . withdrawal should take place as soon as there is diplomatic alignment. How soon you finish washing after dinner depends on when you start. How soon you can do it depends on how soon you start working to create the conditions to do it. It needs negotiation (with neighbouring countries) to begin with.

Juan Cole, professor at the University of Michigan

It is in the (election) platform of the United Iraqi Alliance that they will press for a timetable for withdrawal. This idea seems to be growing in popularity among the (Shia) and even the secularists in Iraq. It appears to be a likely demand from the parliament after the election.

There are dangers in setting a timetable. One is that since the US dissolved the Iraqi military the coalition troops are the only ones keeping any kind of order in a lot of the country.

The other danger that I've argued as a historian is that setting a date for withdrawal in itself sometimes contributes to instability - for example, the Indian partition and 1948 in Palestine. When the foreign power announces that it's going it becomes a lame duck.