Withdrawal at what cost?

Kansas City Star: This has been another bad week in Baghdad. Four large bomb attacks within two days killed more than 50 people. Officials believe these are early signs of what is to come as March elections near. The violence that had largely vanished may be returning.

The targets included three hotels and a police lab — clear signs that Iraq is not as stable as the U.S. would like to believe. The move toward a nation at peace, a nation that can move beyond settling disagreements with bombs and bullets and choose legitimate discussion, has made enormous strides in Iraq in recent years. But it is a journey, and one that is not near its end.

Al-Hamra Hotel

Take events Monday at the Al Hamra Hotel. Gunmen chased private guards away from a security checkpoint to sneak a van filled with explosives into a complex housing foreign journalists and others. It was not foreigners who paid the dearest price.

Images after the blast show a young girl in a pretty yellow sweatshirt splattered crimson. It’s difficult to know if the blood covering her is her own, or that of friends, strangers, even her attackers.

These attacks show the United States must continually re-evaluate the costs — to its interests, to regional stability and to Iraq — of leaving too soon. The timeline calls for a U.S. exit beginning this year.