To the editor:

Progressives like me supported international intervention to mitigate ethnic cleansing in Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. Journal-World reports show ethnic cleansing now under way in Iraq. International efforts to control it are in the best interests of the United States.

Moral and strategic imperatives, however, must sometimes give way to pragmatic calculation. What can actually be salvaged after some four years of escalating American error?

No internationalization could take place without massive American subsidies. The world rightly holds us responsible and won’t bail us out. The monetary costs of competent intervention would exceed even our current expenditures. Progressives could expect no peace dividend.

Internationalization would fail if American troops stayed involved. We are the original cause of war and a continuing irritant. All troops would have to come from Western Europe or far-away Third World countries. Consequently, macroeconomics prudence demands massive tax increases. Otherwise, American bankrolling of foreign troops would cause a huge jump in our adverse balance of payments, i.e., an accelerated fire sale of the American future to Chinese banks.

Neither political party is likely to stomach these tough measures. Even less likely is the World War II-sized effort needed to subdue Iraq with American troops. The only likely outcome is a partitioned Iraq. We will withdraw either now or later, followed no doubt by 50 years of local ethnic terrorism. Given our manifest unwillingness to pay for what we broke, it is better for all concerned if we negotiate terms of withdrawal with the three main ethnic groups now.

David Burress,

Lawrence