I don't expect everyone to agree, but I still think it's fair to say you can make a case worth discussing for things getting worse if the pullout is rushed as badly as the invasion was in the first place.

It's very attractive politics in some quarters to say "let's just leave, asap" but there are areas of genuine international concern, now that the mess has been made:

• Kurdish independence and tensions in Turkey and Iran

• Iranian annexation of areas of the south

• Implosion of the central area into famine/deep poverty

I fully agree that many of these issues cannot be addressed by the US at all, they have no credibility to neogtiate with. But I do think that the international community as a whole owes it to the people living in Iraq to attempt to deal with these issues in co-ordination with a US withdrawal, rather than just campaigning for "US out" with no thought about helping what happens next.