Tony Cordesman, the conservative Persian Gulf military analyst at CSIS, says in a new report (criticizing both the White House and Congress) that President Bush is exaggerating the likely impact of an American withdrawal from Iraq:

A rushed US withdrawal from Iraq might lead to an all out civil war or bloodbath, but probably would simply leave a shattered nation in lingering pain and division. The resulting power struggles would be violent and unpleasant, and probably lead to massive further displacements along sectarian and ethnic lines, but the cost would be a humanitarian disaster, not genocide, and it is unclear that letting Iraqis fight out their differences would ultimately be worse than having the US interfere in them.

The Administration’s argument that Iraq would become a sanctuary for Al Qa’ida attacks on the US ignores both the strong and growing Sunni resistance to an Al Qa’ida takeover in Sunni areas, and the realities of Shi’ite and Kurdish power. If anything, the real risk is probably some form of continuing Sunni-Shi’ite struggle with outside support from Arab Sunni states and Iran. The result would be to worsen and prolong the struggle in Iraq, with some risk of it’s spreading to neighboring states, but not a major rise in the threat to the US.