Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
An' if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know
Should I stay or should I go?

As I've written, I'm torn between these two options, both almost equally bad now that Bush has created these intractable conditions. My impulse is to change the lyric, and say that if we stay there will be trouble, but if we go there will be double. Iraq is almost certain to spiral down into near anarchy if we just pull out without some kind of stability and a robust structure in place to hold off the potential power vaccuum created by our leaving. Problem is that there's really no indication that anything's going to get much better if we stay, and at least our soldiers will be out of harm's way (and removed from conditions which lead them to abuses of the generally accepted standards of behavior for soldiers).

In a situation like that, you either look for the micro-differences which make one plan of action preferable to another, or you hope for the equation to change sufficiently for one solution to become clearly more acceptable, or you seek an alternate solution, something that is neither pulling out nor remaining under the current policies and rules of engagement.

The "third way", ultimately, is what I think will have to happen, but it's certain that such an option is only possible under a new administration, one which is less encumbered by the crushing weight of its past decisions and actions. I'm inclined to think that we should not be pressing Bush to withdraw the troops immediately, that the best we can possibly do right now is to force Bush to change their method of operation (fat chance of that) and hang on until Kerry can use the international goodwill which is lieky to greet his new administration to broker some kind of acceptable compromise, bringing the entire situation under some kind of international control, perhaps a UN mandated security regime carried out by a multinational force with a very large Arab and Islamic presence.

So, I guess it depends on what you mean by "stay" and "go".