Germany and Japan are both first world nations, with comparable levels of achievement. Our troops remain, no longer as conquerors, but as welcome guests. In Iraq, our troops remain after we "completed the job" of getting rid of our enemy, in order to try to change the local culture. The very idea of that can only help our real enemies, the followers of bin Laden, to recruit on the premise that we are the aggressors against Islam, not the other way around.
We are fighting will of the whisps, and occupying a small part of their potential recruiting basin, makes no sense. If you look a bit closer, you will see that the justification for a longer term American presence is the same pathetic policy with which Dean Rusk (under the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations) messed up Third World peoples all over the map. (See Democracy In The Third World.)
William Flax
Oh, we should run away and leave chaos behind, that will solve the problem, I don't think so. You know we aren't fighting a war on Islam. If Al Jazeera and their favorite muslim Bin Laden continue to poison the well it really doesn't matter. What does matter is if the Iraqis develope a modern society they will be the "poster children" that FREEDOM can bring. If Iraq is left to slip into anarchy it will become the new haven for the terrorists. Beyond that it will be a major defeat for the coalition. I'm sure Osama would love that one.