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The Democrats are going apoplectic. Not only does it appear that we will succeed in Iraq, but we will maintain a long term presence to provide internal and external stability. This would be fatal to all the non-principles (America is Bad, Bush is Incompetent, Partisan Political Gain, Iraq was a Mistake, Peace Through Superior Surrender-Power) that our Democrats hold dear. Poor Joe Klein at Time Magazine is even demanding we toss out the Constitution to prevent this one. And Harold Myerson, the legal scholar at the Washington Post, sees this as a nefarious plot by President Bush. Indeed, he warns "Bush's efforts to make the U.S. presence permanent would drape the necks of the Republican presidential and congressional candidates with one large, squawking albatross. " It sounds as if Republicans could be tagged with the eternal shame of success.
With the pax Americana taking hold in Iraq, with Iraqi forces increasing daily in size and effectiveness, and with the drawdown of U.S. forces having begun, it was reported yesterday that President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki had agreed to begin negotiations on the future of U.S. forces in Iraq. Basing troops long term in Iraq would be done, at the invitation of Iraq and for precisely the same reasons as justified statitoning troops in post-war Germany, Japan and Korea: to provide for the internal stability of a nascent Democracy and to protect against external threats. As to external threats to Iraq, Amir Taheri has pointed out that the countries surrounding Iraq have long been planning how to carve it up after the inevitable Democrat-led U.S. withdrawal. And as to internal stability, this from the NY Sun, quoting General Lute:
"From the Iraqi side, the interest that they tend to talk about is that a long-term relationship with us, where we are a reliable, enduring partner with Iraq, will cause different sects inside the Iraqi political structure not to have to hedge their bet in a go-it-alone-like setting, but rather they'll be able to bet on the reliable partnership of the United States," he said.
"To the extent it doesn't cause sectarian groups to have to hedge their bet independently, we're confident that this will actually contribute to reconciliation in the long run," he said.
The agreement in principle "signals that we will protect our interests in Iraq, alongside our Iraqi partners, and that we consider Iraq a key strategic partner, able to increasingly contribute to regional security," the general said.
Read the entire article. (H/T Don Surber)
A stable Iraq is the last thing radical Islamists, Middle East despots, or our Democrats want. According to Time Magazine’s Joe Klein:
The Democrats are lining up. . . . to block any Bush attempt to pass a Status of Forces Agreement treaty with Iraq. The question is, Will Bush try to bypass the Senate by making the SOFA an executive agreement with the Iraqi government? The answer is, of course he will.
. . . But any agreement that opens the door to permanent bases should require Senate approval. . . .
What an ass Joe Klein is. One, a SOFA agreement does not, itself, directly obligate us to station any troops on foreign soil. It merely sets the terms of how such soldiers will be treated in a foreign country. Moreover, SOFA agreements – which we have with virtually every country where our troops are stationed - are not and never have been treaties requiring Senate approval. The President negotiates and signs those agreements as Commander in Chief. As to the whether the Congress can dictate troop deployment once hostilities are ended, that implicates the Constitutional separation of powers between the President as Commander in Chief with day to day control of the military and the Congress whose authority is limited to budgeting and declaration of war. Apparently those nuances of Constitutional law are beyond the grasp of Mr. Klein. Just like the Second Amendment, it would seem that the Constitution need not be consulted when it conflicts with an end that the left is emotionally invested in achieving.
As to the Democrats “lining up,” well, I guess its not as if we have any vital national security interests at stake in Iraq and the Middle East:
Obama has definitively stated that he will "not maintain permanent bases in Iraq." Is it just me, or does that phrasing seem carefully worded?
You can read Hillary’s letter to the White House on the issue here. I love Hillary’s take on this. “To be clear, attempts to establish permanent bases in Iraq would damage U.S. interests in Iraq and the broader region . . .” She does not elaborate on this point, but I would love to hear her explain this in a debate. This is the logic of the far left. America can only succeed by losing. We can only achieve a lasting peace through defeat. It is nihilistic insanity.
John Edwards, though, takes the cake. In demanding a complete withdrawal from Iraq, John Edwards states that “Bush is planning to pursue a 'Korea-style' American occupation of Iraq for 10 years or more.”
How is our stationing of forces in Korea an occupation? An occupation denotes imposing military control over a region. Stationing troops in Iraq at the request of the Iraqi government would be no more of an occupation than was the stationing of our troops in Germany or Japan after their own democratic governments been formed. They are there only at the host country invitation and to provide internal and external stability. And in every foreign country that our soldiers have been so stationed, that is precisely what has occurred. If Mr. Edwards is claiming that Korea does not want our troops there, the man has no touch with reality. The last politician who planned to remove our forces from the Korean peninsula was President Carter. And it was the Koreans who went nuts.
It would seem that our Copperheads are walking ever ever further down the road of defeat in Iraq and the world at large. It is a dangerous road for them indeed.
