The statement yesterday by US Representative John Murtha that the US should pull its troops out of Iraq in the next six months has had a significant  effect on the public debate on the war.  His announcement overshadowed Dick Cheney’s mean-spirited assault on war critics and it resonated with the US Senate decision earlier in the week.   And it raises the question of whether the Bush administration really will be compelled politically to leave Iraq militarily. 

    Questions are what the I Ching thrives on, so I asked the oracle: will the US pull out of Iraq in 2006?  And the answer is: probably so.  (I know some of my readers, I Ching specialists, do not like yes/no questions for the I Ching; but I think they can be appropriate, and they focus the issue at hand…)

     The oracle returned Hexagram 17, "Following," with no moving lines.

     Following here is all about responding to circumstances as they arise, taking decisions based upon an understanding of the evolving political and social context.  It is a classic statement of the idea, found in other sources of political theory: to lead, one must know how to follow.

In order to obtain a following one must first know how to adapt oneself. If a man woul drule he must first learn to serve, for only in this way does he secure from those below him the joyous assent that is necessary if they are to follow him.

      Clearly, Bush has lost the "joyous assent" of those below him.  Not just Democrats, but Republicans, members of his own party, are pressing for a revision of war policy.  The I Ching is telling him, it would seem, to follow the general trend of political and popular opinion (notice how national polls have turned sharply against the war) and step back from Iraq.  That is why I read this as an affirmative response to the question of whether the US will pull out next year.

     Of course, the oracle has both empirical and normative aspects to it: it is suggesting what is likely to happen and also what should happen.  But there is always an element of human agency in I Ching predictions.  Bush could chose not to do the thing that ought to be done;  and the oracle anticipates this as a possibility: