The new phrase of the day being bandied about in discussions of Iraq is "phased redeployment."  To wit:  the incoming Armed Services Committee Chairman, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, said on television last Sunday, "We need to begin a phased redeployment of forces from Iraq in four to six months."

Normally, "redeployment" means that you move troops from position A in Iraq to position B in Iraq.  However, that's not what Senator Levin and other critics of President Bush have in mind.  They use "redeployment" as a euphemism for withdrawing troops - another word for cutting and running from Iraq.

Let's take a step back and review the bidding.  We became involved in Iraq in an effort to depose the villainous thug who was terrorizing the majority of his own people and threatening neighbors.  Now Saddam Hussein is gone.  Chaos has followed.  To be sure, we have not done a good job of managing the post-Saddam period.  For instance, disbanding the Iraqi army is widely accepted as a mistake.  Mistakes were made.  We can't reverse them.  The question is what do we do from here?

We can't simply write off Iraq.  It's in the Middle East, which is the source of most of our oil.  Those harboring doubts about the significance of that oil need only reflect on the last few months.

Oddly enough, the violence in Iraq is not aimed at the United States as occupier.  This is another round in a bitter internal war within Islam between Sunnis and Shiites.  For centuries, these two groups have hated each other and have manifested that hatred with violence and killings.  Throughout the 20th Century, the Sunnis had the upper hand in Arab countries.  They were the ones who wielded power.  They controlled Arab governments.  They were the upper classes.  They kept the Shiites down.

All that began to change with the creation of the Islamic republic in Iran, which, while Persian and not Arabic, was an entirely Shiite country.  Suddenly, Shiites began to realize that they could take control of their country.  With Iranian funding and arms, the Shiite movement in Lebanon, where the Shiites are a minority, reared its head in the form of Hezbollah, wrecking the delicate balance that had been created to govern that country after the Syrian withdrawal.  For years Saddam Hussein and the Sunnis terrorized the Shiite majority.

Suffice it to say there isn't much love lost between the two.

If the United States implements "phased redeployment" before there is stability in Iraq, the civil war between Sunnis and Shiites will escalate, and we will lose credibility around the world.  Intra-Islamic warfare will spread to other Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia. 

Is that a better course of action than the one we're pursuing now?