Permanence

Close reading with Spencer Ackerman. The key line: "Instead of operating under a U.N. mandate, the United States would negotiate an agreement with the Iraqi government for a smaller, long-term presence."

Comments

The major problem being, of course, that "smaller" does not mean "small". 60k troops appears to be their minimum, which just strikes me as nonsensical.

In any case, I suspect the legislation Webb is trying to advance may become the only means by which troop numbers are actually decreased while Bush is in office.

Posted by ProfD | July 10, 2007 9:56 AM

my favorite line in the wapo article is that bush is laying out his "vision for the post-surge."

Posted by howard | July 10, 2007 10:21 AM

"Negotiate an agreement with the Iraqi government?" Why does anyone even pretend that the Iraqi government has any say in this matter?

Posted by James Gary | July 10, 2007 10:25 AM

Negotiating an agreement with the Iraqi government makes as much sense as the official delineation of who it is that we're fighting with in Iraq. Since our missiion is to kill everyone who doesn't want us there killing the people we want to kill we get to do a lot of killing.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 10, 2007 10:46 AM

Why does anyone even pretend that the Iraqi government has any say in this matter?

Are you saying that SIIC, Dawa, Sadr and Ayatollah Sistani are American puppets?

Last time I checked, Sistani had more influence over the Iraqi government than we do. And the parties previously domiciled in Iran - that receive arms and financing from Iran - don't look like American stooges to me. Ditto Sadr.

The point is, we are useful to the Shiites and Kurds comprising the Iraqi government. We fight their battles, we arm their militias and we protect their politicians. So they tolerate our presence. Welcome it in some respects, if contingently and certainly not on a permanent basis.

But if Sistani wanted us out, and/or if we began to try to muscle SIIC and Dawa to move significantly against their interests, then it would be very hard to maintain any troop presence in Iraq at all. The Green Zone would fold, and we'd be facing an insurgency with roots in 80% of Iraq's population, rather than the current 20% model.

We may get a taste of that soon, as we're playing a dangerous game in targeting and alienating Sadr. In this, Dawa and SIIC have played along - but they have selfish interests as well. They're already planning on dividing up the spoils that were previously assigned to Sadr's bloc.

Posted by Eric Martin | July 10, 2007 10:47 AM