Iraq
The answer to Iraq is simple: let the Iraqis vote on how long they want the US to stay, then do what they say. If they vote for us to leave, then the military has a mission: within sixty days, move to friendly countries such as Kuwait and Qatar to prevent Iranian invasion until the Iraqis can stop it own their own. If they say stay, then there is a mandate. Whether the result of this vote is a mission or a mandate, both should be executed with maximum transparency to the American people and the rest of the world.
Citizens living in Kurdish-majority provinces should be allowed a referendum on establishing an autonomous zone, with an eye toward a second referendum establishing the Republic of Kurdistan. Should that country be established, NATO forces should be put in place to protect its borders and it should be fast-tracked toward NATO membership if that is the wish of its freely elected government.
President John F. Kennedy stated in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, "...men and nations will pursue a variety of roads, that each nation will evolve according to its own traditions and its own aspirations, and that the world of the future will have room for a diversity of economic systems, political creeds, religious faiths, united by the respect for others, and loyalty to a world order." We must give the Iraqis the opportunity to evolve, and elections on our involvment will allow this.
