Let me be clear at the outset: I never supported the Iraq war and am certainly no fan of the Bush administration. Though there were some compelling ethical arguments for intervention (end Saddam’s tyranny, liberate Iraqi civil society, create democratizing wave in the Middle East), there were massive pragmatic constraints to implementing such idealist foreign policy goals, not to mention all manner of sinister motives within and outside the administration.

But we’re there now, like it or not. The recent bombing of a Shiite shrine and the sectarian violence that has followed is merely a taste of what Iraq will become if we precipitously withdraw from Iraq. All that is stopping a Sunni-Shiite bloodbath right now is the American military.

This situation is essentially our fault, so we owe it to Iraq to create a reasonably stable security situation before we leave. Those on the anti-war left who contend that leaving Iraq now is the right thing to do are essentially arguing for the abandonment of the Shiites to the murderous whims of the Sunni insurgency. The United States has plenty of blood on its hands to date and it doesn’t have much moral capital to draw on in that part of the world, but to withdraw would be to incite a massacre. There’s nothing ethical or humanitarian about that.