Disengagement and Democracy

Sometime this summer, if all goes well, the United States will disengage its combat troops from Iraq—and next summer from Afghanistan. In the Dissent/Penn Press book Getting Out, a number of our writers look at historical examples of imperial and postwar exits and discuss the moral criteria for a successful disengagement. One of these is making a best-possible effort to leave behind a decent and effective state. Is the effort we are making in Iraq and Afghanistan the best we could possibly make? There have been so many misjudgments and mistakes in both places, leaving aside the initial decisions to go in (which I would judge differently in the two cases). So, what would a best possible effort look like now?