Here's a teaser for the upcoming Robert Redford movie dealing with the War on Terror.

At one point Meryl Streep's journalist asks Tom Cruise's politician: "What are we still doing there after 6 years? World War II took less than 5."

This is a nice sentence that sums up a growing sentiment to get the hell out of Iraq. I think I'd answer it this way:

The actual war part of WWII might have taken less than five years, but the reconstruction of Japan, with MacArthur as defacto ruler, took seven. And that was without the interference of rogue nations (like Iran) or an influx of terrorists (like Al Qaeda in Iraq).

To withdraw from Iraq now is to waste any good that might have been done there, to leave it to the wolves, and to consign it to the dustbin of failed Middle Eastern states.