"But we can't pull out now!"

Arianna Huffington argues on her blog that America needs to shift from hard power to soft power in Iraq. And that means pulling out troops and replacing them with more diplomatic missions, resources to rebuild the social and political spheres, and help the Iraqis build a civil society to overcome their ethnic and religious differences:

To win in Iraq, we need to leave Iraq. To win, we need to stop being the issue. To win, we need to give our money, our brains, our support in every way -- but no longer the lives of our soldiers.

The all-consuming focus on training Iraqi troops may actually be shifting resources from an equally if not more important goal: convincing "the people of Iraq...of the value of finally putting aside their ethnic and political differences." Let history once again be an important guide here--as "retired Gen. William Odom, former national security advisor to Reagan, has pointed out ...we trained the Vietnamese military very well, [but] in the end South Vietnam’s political leaders lost the war."

It's time for the politicians to ditch the "But we can't pull out now!" line and come up with some more creative solutions that will get Iraq back on track towards a stable democracy.