Commentary: Is it time for the U.S. to get out of Iraq?

My friend Ty Cobb Sr., a Reno blogger/political columnist, recently called my attention to a previously classified memo by a senior military adviser in Baghdad arguing that it's time "for the U.S. to declare victory and go home." The adviser, U.S. Army Col. Timothy Reese, has a point of view well worth considering.

Col. Reese's memo asserts that the Iraqi armed forces have many problems including corruption, poor management and the inability to resist political pressure from Shiite political parties. At the same time, the colonel argues that Iraqi forces are competent enough to hold off Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias and other internal threats to the weak Iraqi government.

Much of this echoes what I've been saying ever since ex-President Bush declared a premature victory on the deck of an aircraft carrier, one of his most egregious gaffes. The Iraq War won't be "won" until and unless political reconciliation is achieved between the Sunnis and the Shiites, who are partners in a shaky coalition government. That's a job for Iraqi politicians rather than the U.S. military.

We've already sacrificed more than 4,000 American lives and spent untold billions of our tax dollars in an effort to create conditions that will permit the Iraqis to govern themselves, if that's possible. That's still an open question that only the Iraqis can answer.

"Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days," Col. Reese wrote in his unusually blunt memo. "Since the signing of the 2009 security agreement, we are guests in Iraq, and after six years in Iraq, we now smell bad ..." In my view, it's now or never for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his coalition government.

"The massive partnering efforts of U.S. combat forces with Iraq isn't yielding benefits commensurate with the effort and is now generating its own opposition," Reese wrote. "We should declare our intention to withdraw all U.S. military forces from Iraq by August 2010," which would accelerate Obama's withdrawal timetable by about 15 months.

When Reese's memo became public late last month Gen. Ray Odierno, the senior American military commander in Iraq, said the memo didn't reflect the official stance of the U.S. government and claimed that some of the problems mentioned by Reese had been corrected. Odierno has a plan calling for a rapid drawdown of U.S. forces after Iraqi national elections scheduled for next January, with complete withdrawal of American troops by the end of 2011. We've propped-up the Iraqis for far too long; we should bring our troops home by the end of next year.

• Guy W. Farmer, of Carson City, is a retired diplomat who believes in "beer diplomacy."