Why settle for just one international retreat under fire?

Whether the United States should have withdrawn earlier from Afghanistan and Iraq is one thing, but running away while under fire is not a good look.

And yet despite the disaster in Afghanistan, Biden is preparing to repeat the experiment.

Iranian-backed militia strikes on U.S. positions in Iraq have wounded and killed American soldiers. Under pressure, the Biden administration resumed responding with air strikes. The Iranian-backed militias they were targeting are among those backed and funded by the Shiite Iran-backed regime in Baghdad.

And so Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani called for American forces to leave the country.

“Let’s agree on a time frame (for the coalition’s exit) that is, honestly, quick, so that they don’t remain long and the attacks keep happening,” he urged.

Biden is rushing to comply.

Washington will begin talks with Baghdad to end a U.S.-led international military coalition in the country while determining the best ways to strengthen relations, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced Thursday.

Working group meetings of the U.S.-Iraq Higher Military Commission will start in the coming days, beginning the process that both countries agreed to during talks in Washington last summer.

The meetings aim to ensure the transition to “an enduring bilateral security partnership” between Washington and Baghdad, Austin said in the statement, adding that the process “reflects the deep U.S. commitment to regional stability and Iraqi sovereignty.”

The U.S. announced the talks in a letter to Iraq’s foreign minister on Wednesday, Reuters first reported. Washington originally insisted that Iran-backed Iraqi militant groups end their attacks on U.S. troops in the country as a condition of beginning the talks, but have since backed down.

Of course, they have.

Withdrawing troops while leaving an American diplomatic presence in Baghdad is just begging for another Afghanistan, but Secretary of State Blinken and the other State Department geniuses who did this in Kabul, are bound to want to remain.

What we actually should do (and should have done a while back) is get the hell out of Baghdad. It’s enemy territory.

The same goes for the Shiite government which is allied with Iran. We should remain and continue to work with the Kurds who have, by the standards of Muslims in the region, been fairly credible allies, and whom we have not done right by.

We should recognize Kurdish independence (which will infuriate all the right players, including Baghdad and Istanbul), buy Kurdish oil (despite all the money and lives spent, we have not actually benefited from Iraqi oil), possibly work with any Sunnis interested in working with us, but avoid any kind of military commitment. And this will tear apart a united Iraq. To which I can only say, good.

There should be no civilian presence in Baghdad or any territories under the control of Iranian militias.

The funny thing is that in one of his rare broken clock moments, when he was less out of it, Biden had proposed doing this and dividing Iraq into three. His actual plan was dumb and no one will agree to it. But it’s not our job to run Iraq. All we should be doing is working with allies and not enemies. Baghdad is an enemy.

We shouldn’t be in Baghdad, but neither should we be leaving under fire. The situation should never have been allowed to deteriorate. And now that it has, Biden has put on some air strikes for show while allowing Iran and the terrorists to claim victory.

Will they attack a US diplomatic presence in Baghdad once we’ve evacced, forcing yet another urgent evacuation?

I wouldn’t bet against it.