Can we Really Exit Iraq?

It seems to me that what is past is past. We did in fact invade Iraq. We stirred that pot and now there is soup. If we leave, Iran and their Syrian marionettes will commit genocide, dominate the world oil economy and use the platform to destabilize the Mid-East and 'stans further. They will plan and execute State terror in the US and Europe. These are things that have been concerns for serious people for more than 25 years. These worries are among the main geopolitical reasons that prior US governments offered limited support to Saddam. Even during the cold war prior to Reagan, intelligence and military planners and analysts were presenting a broader Iraq (a 'restored' Persian Empire) as one of the great perils that might be encountered.

There seems to be no compromise possible with Iran, while the view its leaders hold of the west is that the existence of this society itself is an evil. With nuclear capability approaching, the scenario is even more dire.

Now, don't mistake me, I am not advocating more of the same in Iraq or elsewhere. But I am worried about what will happen when we leave Iraq, and what impact a nuclear Iran, reconstituted with vast oil reserves and a thirst for 'pagan' (other sects or non-Islamic peoples) blood will have on my children. It is like I am learning that the medieval church is going to be in charge again, the Inquisitors will again be abroad in the land, lovingly torturing and killing the insufficiently conventional. I hear so much about how intolerant American society is...I wonder what we will all think ten years hence when we are well experienced at true intolerance.

I hope that a Great Person or cause rallies democratic people here and abroad to deal with the coming threat. Better yet, perhaps it will be a bag of gas, and people like me who worry over it will be shown to be neurotic fools. That would make me happy. But I imagine there are a number of families in Lockerbie and elsewhere that would like to educate me further.