I want to agree with you about leaving Iraq. I think, ideally, we should fix it. However, I'm totally unconvinced that anything that we can do could fix it at this point. I'm also unconvinced that occupying the country for many more years will do anything to alleviate the backlash that will occur when we do leave. So, from my point of view, either we leave now or soon and have a huge humanitarian crisis, or we leave later and have a huge humanitarian crisis before which we continue the large humanitarian crisis that exists now, or we never leave and have a permanent large humanitarian crisis.

This is not a situation that I'm happy with. Sometimes the real world completely steps all over one's ideals. And I do think that a lot of the "leave Iraq" sentiment is totally reactionary and ill-advised. That said, I don't think any of the candidates that are in support of leaving Iraq intend to just dump it on the floor and let it be. I think that they all intend for there to still be a reasonably significant American presence in Iraq, just not an overtly military one. (That said, I haven't examined this in depth because, while I think that this would probably be the best course of action, I also think that staying indefinitely is the worst course of action, so that limits my choices.)