"One of the major reasons for the US to get out of Iraq is that its attempt to occupy a major Arab Muslim country is generating terrorism and support for terrorism at a pace much faster than US security agencies can fight it. The longer we stay in Iraq, the more likely it is that it will produce another attack on the US mainland. Since important elements of the US political, military and corporate elite are apparently not actually much interested in democracy, another such attack might provide the heavies with a pretext to do away with it in practice (the Putin model), whatever trimmings they retain." - - - Juan Cole