There's a reason we can't withdraw our troops from Iraq. We're there to protect the oil fields which we have privatized for the profits of Western multinationals. We have invested not in hospitals nor schools nor infrastructure, but in fortresses and military compounds. Neither R's nor D's in Washington will abandon our military installations in Iraq, so long as they remain beholden to these same oil companies.

When American forces leave Iraq, battles will be fought for control of these oil resources. Ultimately, they will be re-nationalized – to which faction we cannot predict.

We were all sidetracked into a debate over whether there will be a civil war after our troops depart; that turned to a discussion whether the currently-raging civil war will be better or worse after American troops are out. Is our military presence a support for fledgling democracy, or a divisive irritant?

Such questions are beside the point. We have seized Iraq's enormous oil wealth and handed it to private interests. It is those interests that are keeping us in Iraq, not any commitment to 'democracy'.

My thesis is that this war will not end so long as we continue to debate questions of democracy, stability, and human rights. We need to build public awareness of the economic crime that has been committed, to make the moral case for restoring Iraqi assets to the Iraqis, relinquishing the booty of our conquest.

This is a tough sell to the American people, however solid is its moral basis. The day that we are crying in the streets, 'Give the Iraqis back their oil!' is the day Congress will compel the Administration to effect a military withdrawal from Iraq.

~ Josh Mitteldorf