....We need to figure out the way that will have the smallest human cost. I really hate saying it like that, but that's how it is.
On the issue of withdrawl from Iraq, there's obviously two things we can do right now. Stay or pull out.

Stricly from a human life perspective, which do you think is better? Complete instability, civil (+outside?) war, anarchy, chaos in the oil-rich Middle East, or having a reasonably stable area with a very dominant (albeit hated) military? Let's be real now. We can think of a lot of reasons for staying, but not many for leaving. Let's be even more real with ourselves now. We're going to be there for a long time. 50 years from now, we're still going to be there. Japan, Germany, South Korea we're still at all of those places...