The last time I remember Ambassador Ryan Crocker warning about a possible bloodbath, it was in September 1982 as the Sabra-Shatila massacre was taking place in Beirut. So when Crocker tells the New York Times that a rapid U.S. withdrawal from Iraq could produce a human tragedy on a far larger scale, people should take notice. He has seen it happen before.

Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, described the dangers starkly on Monday in explaining what might happen if the United States withdraws its troops too quickly from Iraq: "The dangers could be a civil war, dividing the country, regional wars and the collapse of the state."

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