I voted against the Congressional resolution authorizing President Bush to use force against Iraq, primarily because there was no evidence of an Iraq connection to 9/11, because there was no evidence that Saddam posed an immediate threat to us with WMD, and because I believed the President's new-found enthusiasm for a "preemptive war" doctrine was both unconstitutional and dangerous.

I've always scoffed at the perverse, optimistic, and backwards variation on the Vietnam-era domino theory put forward by the Bush administration--that somehow by bringing democracy (even at the end of gun) to Iraq, we would prompt other counties in the region to stand up robust democracies. It was the height of arrogance for the President and his advisors to believe that we could remake Iraq in our image in a few years when our own democracy took centuries to develop and is itself still a work in progress.

After the fall of Saddam's regime, I had hoped that it might be possible to salvage something from the wreckage of Bush's failed Iraq policy, that perhaps the President and the people around him would see the urgent need to internationalize the rebuilding of Iraq's physical, social, and economic infrastructure. But as with so many other aspects of its foreign and domestic policies, the President and his advisors chose to put their faith in their ideology rather than deal with the facts on the ground in Iraq. But facts, as they say, are stubborn things, and they indicate that the situation on the ground in Iraq is not improving. Now, our nation must reassess whether our continued presence in Iraq is helpful or harmful.

The difficulties surrounding the writing of the draft Iraqi constitution is a portent of things to come. I see two principal outcomes in the wake of the October 15 national referendum on the draft constitution, but our response to either should be the same: to commence the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. The only variable in these two scenarios is the speed of our withdrawal.

Should the draft constitution pass without significant Sunni support, the document and the new government that follows in December will face great difficulty in establishing a true sense of legitimacy among the Sunni population. The new, relatively weak central government will almost certainly continue to have difficulty recruiting and retaining security forces that are loyal and effective. That is a problem that the United States cannot solve for the Iraqis and that the U.S. presence actually exacerbates.

We can and should continue to provide aid, technical assistance, training support, and if necessary funding to help the Iraqi government slowly build a police force and military that can secure the country. We should do everything we can to make that aid, assistance, support, and funding international, not so much to reduce our burden as to increase the possibility that the help actually helps. That commitment does not require the continued presence of over 130,000 American troops. If anything, announcing on October 16 that our forces will begin an immediate, phased withdrawal from the country would likely help the new Iraqi government by demonstrating that we're going to keep our word and end the occupation, and without permanent U.S. military bases in the country. It would also provide a fresh opportunity to internationalize the reconstruction of Iraq.

This "best case" scenario produces a weak, struggling Iraqi central government that will have to battle simultaneously the insurgents as well as the tendency of the competing interests of Iraq's sectarian factions to destabilize the government and society. The road back to a stable Iraq will be a long and difficult one, but it is one the Iraqis will have to travel themselves if they are to have a chance of forging a new national identity.

The other post-October 15 scenario is far bleaker.

If the Sunni's follow through with their public threat to campaign against the draft constitution and the measure subsequently fails to gain the approval of Iraqi voters, the existing government will have to be dissolved and the entire process of drafting a constitution started anew.

The first question is whether any Iraqi political faction--particularly the Kurds--will think it worth the effort. The second question will be whether the American people are willing to underwrite--through further expenditure of blood and treasure--another Iraqi attempt to create and approve a constitution. Both issues appear to be in doubt, and I believe it would be unconscionable to ask the American people to sacrifice still more of their loved ones and see more of their tax dollars wasted in the vain hope that the Iraqis will get it right the second time around.

We should not underestimate the centrifugal political forces at work in Iraq. The Kurds have sought a separate national homeland for centuries. Since the end of the 1991 Gulf War, they have enjoyed a de facto independent state in northern Iraq. Many Shiite political factions clearly want the same type of status for Iraq's southern provinces. If the major Sunni political factions succeed in killing the current draft constitution, there is a real danger that both the Kurdish and Shiite factions will abandon any interest in a unitary Iraqi state and begin agitating for the partition of the country along largely sectarian lines. Civil war would not be far behind, and in the midst of that chaos, Abu Musab al Zarqawi and his branch of al Qaeda will find new opportunities to expand their operations and their influence in central Iraq. Dark visions, to be sure, but ones we cannot ignore or wish away.

Should the Iraqi transitional government collapse amidst an ethnic and religious civil war, the rationale for having American troops in Iraq will collapse with it, and the need quickly to withdraw American troops in the wake of the failed referendum will become acute. We should be preparing now for this contingency.

Congress should ask the Defense and State Departments to provide detailed (and if necessary, classified) briefings on their contingency plans should Iraq slide into a civil war. Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte should be required to update the current National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq and offer his own assessment of the prospects of an Iraqi civil war/partition and the likely national security consequences of such an event. Mr. Negroponte, FBI Director Muller, and Department of Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff should be required to report on what additional, immediate measures (along with any necessary funding requests) would be required to help block the flow of potential al Qaeda operatives from Iraq to Europe and America.

We can continue to hope that none of this will come to pass, but hope is not a course of action. We need to do what the President and his advisors did not do prior to March 2003--look at the world as it is, not through a rose-colored ideological prism, and take appropriate action to protect ourselves and our allies. Our first step in charting a new course of action on Iraq should be to commence the withdrawal of our forces on October 16. It's time to bring our troops home.