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Two Ways OutIraq plans Bush won't consider, but his successor should.

By Fred KaplanPosted Monday, April 9, 2007, at 6:22 PM ET

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Simon and Cole agree that the United States' main goals, at this point, should be to limit the effects of the civil war (which is already well in progress) and to keep the conflagration from spreading across the region.

It may seem paradoxical at first glance, but the best way to accomplish both goals may be to declare that we are leaving—that we're doing so on a timetable to be negotiated with the Iraqi government and in tandem with a separate, broader negotiation to end the civil war, but we are getting out.

The impending departure of U.S. troops may impel mainstream Sunni insurgents to turn against the jihadists. It may also compel the Sunni Arabs to take part in the negotiations on some national accord, knowing that American troops will not be there to protect them against Shiite or Kurdish reprisals. Cole further recommends holding new provincial elections so that the elected Sunni Arab representatives could stand in for guerrilla groups in the national talks, as Sinn Fein did in Northern Ireland.

However, both Simon and Cole emphasize, this step must be linked to active engagement with all of Iraq's neighbors. Cole lays out a scenario in which the United States and Britain work with the United Nations or the Organization of the Islamic Conference on this task, citing as a model the Bonn conference of December 2001 that helped install a unity government in Afghanistan. He envisions the Iraqi government arranging formal security commitments with the foreign ministers of Iran, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. He also suggests inviting Saudi Arabia to reprise the role it played in brokering an end to the Lebanese civil war in 1989, noting the credibility that King Abdullah has with the Sunni Arabs—though he notes, in that case, the Iranians will have to play a similar role in helping to shut down the Shiite militias, especially Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi army.

Under this scheme, the United States would negotiate a phased withdrawal in tandem with these political settlements. Simon notes that some U.S. troops should stay—to secure Baghdad International Airport, the Green Zone, and access routes in between. He also urges a stepped-up U.S. military presence elsewhere in the Persian Gulf. Cole is not in favor of a total U.S. pullout, either. (Nor, it should be noted, are the House or Senate Democrats, who, in their bills, provide continued funding for troops involved in counterterrorism, training Iraqi security forces, and protecting U.S. personnel.)

Short of a transformation akin to that of Paul on the road to Damascus, it's hard to imagine George W. Bush even beginning to take these ideas seriously. That would entail admitting that victory isn't possible, legitimizing certain factions of the insurgency, and—most revolting of all—negotiating with Iran and Syria. Add them together, and it's just too many hurdles to leap.

If the next president puts something like these plans in motion, will they amount to anything? Neither Simon nor Cole is naive on this score. Both admit their proposals are gambles. For my own part, I doubt that the Iranians have a deep interest in a stable Iraq and wonder, with trepidation, what price they'd demand in exchange for helping to build one.

Still, as Cole puts it, "A withdrawal is risky, but on the evidence so far, for the U.S. military to remain in Iraq is a sure recipe for disaster."