Supporters of the Iraq situation, which in my humble opinion is the single worst foreign policy blunder committed by the United States since ... probably the XYZ Affair or something like that, like to point out that many people in Muslim countries support terrorist "jihad" and its goals.

I dispute how prevalent that really is, but even if it is true, I wonder how much of that is genuine faith, and how much of it is their way of "sticking it to the man."

There's no question the military presence in Iraq is resented by the average Iraqi who just wants to live a normal, peaceful life. I should stress in the strongest possible terms that this is not the fault of the troops there in any sense. For example, I personally know of one Iraq veteran who tried to interact with the Iraqis and find some common ground, but he was basically ordered not to do that. I suspect there's a lot of that going around.

Today's situation in the Middle East is largely a result of Western foreign policy stupidity over the past 75 years, from the British blundering of the Balfour Declaration, to the CIA overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government with 1953's "Operation Ajax." In fairness, it's also caused by a strident reluctance throughout the Muslim world to liberalize their governments and societies. Until both of these issues are addressed, no serious progress can be made.

What's past is past, and now we're left with several inescapable conclusions:

-Israel has the right to exist as an independent state. Deal.

-Palestine has the right to exist as an independent state, too. Deal.

-No action by any entity within the United States Government, military or otherwise, can solve this problem.

-The Muslim world has to get serious about fixing itself. This has nothing to do with terrorism, it's a general standard of living issue. I assure you al-Qaeda wouldn't be near as popular if more Muslims enjoyed comfortable lifestyles.

The world does a pretty good job with the first point, but attention to the others is, um, lacking. Meanwhile, the average worker in Iraq or Syria or Saudi Arabia sees the United States interfering (or perhaps more correctly, perceives them as interfering) in their own lives and understandably gets grumpy. Reactions range from the aforementioned desire to "stick it to the man" to suicide bombings.

With these conclusions in mind, withdrawing our troops and revisiting this area with a politically-based agenda based on these inescapable conclusions can only serve to help our standing in this part of the world (not to mention it stops American kids getting killed out there). This is _NOT_ a concession to terrorism in any sense. It's common sense.

Radical wingnuts will still be out there, and they still should be tracked down and brought to justice. Like 99.99% of the free world, I want Osama hunted down, taken in, and his operation shut down permanently. Let's be crystal clear on that. Too bad the administration isn't.

We can't fix this, but we can stop it from becoming worse by not being "the man" so much.