As U.S. casualties continue to mount in Iraq, there are increasing calls for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Democrats remain divided on withdrawal as a viable strategy for the midterm election. Our involvement in Iraq is a political issue in Washington to be sure, but not for the right reasons.

Even if you support troops and want to prevent the further loss of American lives, it’s imperative to look beyond our own losses. Iraqi civilians are dying at the rate of 100 per day according to the United Nations. In June alone, more than 50 Iraqi civilians died for every one of our soldiers. And their deaths are increasingly cruel.

These questions might help frame the debate over a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq:

1. Are our troops exacerbating the problem or are they preventing further violence in Iraq? An Army commander in the documentary “Operation: Dreamland” commented that (paraphrased), “At this point, we are here to protect one thing: ourselves.”

2. Will the withdrawal of American troops increase the bloodletting in Iraq and lead to a full-scale civil war? If so, our current investment of troops and money might look like child’s play compared to our later involvement in a civil, or even a regional war.

3. If we left Iraq immediately and it turned into a flourishing democracy and ally, would our military credibility still be permanently weakened? Withdrawal also writes a recipe for how to engage our military in asymmetric tactics such as the use of IEDs. Iraqi insurgents have clearly learned that we didn’t stay the course in Somalia in 1994 after our troops were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.

Unfortunately, our involvement in Iraq is more likely to be determined by domestic politics rather than by considering the hard questions.

If we divide the U.S. into Bush states and Kerry states based on the 2004 election, we can gain some insight into how troop casualties might affect the elections. Of the 11 states that were competitive in the 2004 presidential election (less than 5% difference between winner and loser), all but two states have higher troop losses per capita than the average of the states that Kerry carried.

With support for the war in Iraq slipping and the plummet of Bush’s approval rating, those red swing states with higher-than-average fatalities are unlikely to have the stomach for U.S. troop losses that they did two years ago.

Consider this: on a per capita basis, 585 times more Iraqi civilians than U.S. troops were killed in the month of June. Redeployment is more complicated than short-term domestic politics. Let’s hope the politicians realize that by considering how our policy will affect troop losses well beyond the midterm elections.

Notes: U.S. troop losses as of 7.26.06

Sources: Statastic research; Iraq Coalition Casualty Count; USA Today; U.S. Census

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