Edwards Responds

Not only is John Edwards' response to Bush's speech good, but by presenting me with a convenient embedable video, he's helping meet this blog's desperate thirst for multimedia content:

Woo!

UPDATE: That said, John Edwards' stated policy on Iraq seems less-than-brilliant to me:

Edwards believes we should completely withdraw all combat troops in Iraq within about a year and prohibit permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq. After withdrawal, we should retain sufficient forces in the region to contain the conflict and ensure that instability in Iraq does not spill over into other countries, creating a regional war, a terrorist haven, or a genocide.

It seems to me that these war aims (ensuring that instability in Iraq doesn't spill over into other countries, create a regional war, a terrorist haven, or a genocide) are basically the same as George W. Bush's and that, as from the beginning in Iraq, to achieve them you would need 450,000 or so troops in Iraq. Now, obviously, Edwards is proposing no such thing, but it's not clear to me what he is proposing. As I've argued before, these nightmare scenarios of regional conflagration, genocide, terrorist havens, etc. all strike me as implausible. If we just leave Iraq, I bet none of it will happen. But the only way to ensure this stuff doesn't happen is to baby-sit the civil war.

Comments

Edwards says that he wants to retain some forces in the region, not in Iraq. Why is this so hard for you to understand?

Posted by Clark | September 14, 2007 10:02 AM

But the only way to ensure this stuff doesn't happen is to baby-sit the civil war.

If that's straight--not sarcasm--and your view, that's a sizable move for you, no?

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | September 14, 2007 10:12 AM

Um, if not Iraq, where? A floating platform? I thought we went to war with Iraq specifically BECAUSE it was a nifty place to have military bases.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | September 14, 2007 10:21 AM

I thought we went to war with Iraq...
We didn't go to war with Iraq.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | September 14, 2007 10:39 AM

Everybody in the Middle East hates everybody else in the Middle East. Not resentment, vitriolic hatred. Imposing peace will never happen. Negotiating a lasting peace will never happen. Killing enough people and destroying enough infrastructure to subdue or cow populations into submission will never happen. We can't win. But many of them are sitting atop oil. Oil we want and oil we'll either buy at the price we like or oil we'll take lacking their appropriate cooperation. It's not going to change.

Posted by steve duncan | September 14, 2007 10:43 AM

I think this policy may have been designed to counter his somewhat fey reputation. Essentially he is saying that we need to withdraw from iraq, not because the circumstances are so bad, but because they arent bad enough. Iraq is simply too gay a war for a tough guy like edwards, once it turns into a genocide and offers the opportunity for a real manly war, that's when big jon wants to get involved.

Posted by pimp hand strikes! | September 14, 2007 10:44 AM

How about, oh, I dunno, Kuwait? Saudi Arabia? You know, the place our troops were, perfectly safe, not dying etcetera, before the Iraq war?

That is the way I interpret the reference to "the region": basically returning our troops deployments to something resembling the status quo ante bellum.

It strikes me as logical that a force in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia *would* be in a position to serve as an "army in being" against anyone who want to play in Iraq (whether this is a legitimate use of our army can still be argued of course, whether that threat is real is also debatable of course, but its important to clarify that this is what is being discussed). It also strikes me as reasonable that troops in Kuwait etcetera would be in a position to perform some small operation nabbing this or that terrorist in order to hurt whatever actual constitutes AQI, if anything.

Posted by Chilango2 | September 14, 2007 10:44 AM

"The region" is a somewhat fuzzy term. It might mean Baghdad, it might mean Kurdistan, it might mean places like Kuwait. I'm an Edwards supporter and I have no idea what the actual plan is, which drives me a bit crazy.

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | September 14, 2007 11:12 AM

When someone who is perfectly capable of writing clearly writes something unclear, it means that he either is obsfucating or has no idea what he really means.

Posted by ostap | September 14, 2007 11:21 AM

Re: "We didn't go to war with Iraq."

Wow, am I relieved to hear that. I guess it was just a bad dream. I was under the impression that, under the leadership of our doofus president, we invaded Iraq in 2003, resulting in deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and the displacements of millions. Glad to hear it didn't really happen.

Posted by Jim W | September 14, 2007 11:24 AM

"The region" is a somewhat fuzzy term.

Edwards's people have specifically answered this one before:

"Finally, it's also Senator Edwards' position that we will have troops in the region to prevent the sectarian violence in Iraq from spilling over into other countries, for counter-terrorism, or to prevent a genocide. But in the region means in the region - for example, existing bases like Kuwait , naval presence in the Persian Gulf , and so forth."

It wold be nice if Matt actually paid attention to this kind of thing, since it's supposed to be his job.

Posted by Christmas | September 14, 2007 11:31 AM

Watch the TPM interview again, I think it's very clear that the "region" is not Iraq.

Posted by AJ | September 14, 2007 11:37 AM

Thanks, Christmas, you're exactly right. There seems to be an almost deliberate obtuseness in some quarters on this.

Posted by AJ | September 14, 2007 11:43 AM

So, he means that "existing bases like Kuwait , naval presence in the Persian Gulf, and so forth" will "contain the conflict and ensure that instability in Iraq does not spill over into other countries, creating a regional war, a terrorist haven, or a genocide."

Well, I'm glad he cleared that up! And so forth!

Posted by ostap | September 14, 2007 11:50 AM

If genocide or regional war is not going to happen, then putting a small force in Kuwait to prevent it strikes me as pretty smart - like Lisa Simpson's tiger repellent rock.

Posted by CleverEdwards | September 14, 2007 11:57 AM

We didn't go to war with Iraq.
Wow, am I relieved to hear that. I guess it was just a bad dream

It wasn't a dream. It really happened and it happened in Iraq. But we didn't go to war with Iraq. We went to war with terroism in Iraq .Of course there were no terrorists there until about 2 years after our invasion (Unless you count the Kurds who were continuously attacking our allies, in Turkey.) A minor point, perhaps, but the failure of Brett Bellmore and his ilk to notice such niceties led us to this total clusterfuck that struts around as a strategy.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | September 14, 2007 12:05 PM

We didn't go to war with Iraq.
Wow, am I relieved to hear that. I guess it was just a bad dream

It wasn't a dream. It really happened and it happened in Iraq. But we didn't go to war with Iraq. We went to war with terrorism in Iraq. A minor point, perhaps, but the failure of Brett Bellmore and his ilk to notice such niceties led us to this total clusterfuck that struts around as a strategy.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | September 14, 2007 12:06 PM

My comments prove me an idiot, but I regret the double posting -- please ignore the first one.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | September 14, 2007 12:10 PM

Why o' why must any praise of John Edwards immediately be followed with some obtuse attempt at criticism?

Is that how one earns a journalism merit badge these days?

Posted by bubba | September 14, 2007 12:11 PM

On a much less important note, isn't it a little bit literal-minded to append I'm-John-Edwards-and-approved-this-message to a message which consists entirely of John Edwards speaking into a camera?

Isn't it, uh, implicit?

Posted by Sean | September 14, 2007 1:54 PM

On a much less important note, isn't it a little bit literal-minded to append I'm-John-Edwards-and-approved-this-message to a message which consists entirely of John Edwards speaking into a camera?

The campaign is required by law to put that at the end of the ad. McCain-Feingold.

Posted by Christmas | September 14, 2007 2:02 PM

"Why o' why must any praise of John Edwards immediately be followed with some obtuse attempt at criticism?

Is that how one earns a journalism merit badge these days?"

Hell, yes! They don't call him "Big Media Matt" for nothing! Lets face it, to the respectable journalists Edwards 2008 is Gore 2000.

Just because Matt has a popular blog doesn't mean he's not one of the Washington elite--he is, and as such you should always keep that caveat when you read his posts.

Posted by DoubtingThomas | September 14, 2007 3:24 PM

The usual nonsense from people who don't think things through...

"It strikes me as logical that a force in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia *would* be in a position to serve as an "army in being" against anyone who want to play in Iraq (whether this is a legitimate use of our army can still be argued of course, whether that threat is real is also debatable of course, but its important to clarify that this is what is being discussed)."

Fine - now you've clarified that the concept is to keep a force in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia (the latter once again inflaming the jihadists who want all US forces out of there.)

"It also strikes me as reasonable that troops in Kuwait etcetera would be in a position to perform some small operation nabbing this or that terrorist in order to hurt whatever actual constitutes AQI, if anything.'

Right - you get actionable intelligence that some "terrorist" is precisely located somewhere in Iraq, you can drop a Predator on him, or a cruise missile, or a SEAL team. Whatever. None of which requires the basing of any significant number of troops in any area of the region. All of that can be done from Naval vessels or longer range bases, depending on the need for speed of reaction to the intelligence.

None of that has ANYTHING to do with the main issues of either "genocide", external invasion, or "conflict spilling over the borders."

If it's "genocide", WHAT IS THE PLAN for dealing with that? Dump another 150,000 US troops into the middle of it? How is that different from NOW?

No answer from anybody here or the Democrats...

Invasion? From who? Turkey? Right - we're going to get into a war with Turkey over the Kurds?

Iran? We're ALREADY planning to go to war with Iran!

Who else is in a position to "play in Iraq"? Syria? They couldn't care less. They're more worried about the US and Israel than Iraq.

What does "conflict spilling over the borders" actually MEAN? What does it LOOK LIKE?

Are we talking about lining our troops up on the borders of Syria and Saudi Arabia so that Sunnis do not go into Iraq to join the Sunni insurgency?

Are we talking about somehow preventing Iranian agents - who allegedly already number in the scores of thousands in Iraq - from somehow infiltrating Iraq? Without being able to line THEIR border? HOW?

Are we talking about hordes of Shia and/or Sunni militias somehow jumping into trucks and invading Syria or Saudi Arabia - or even Kuwait? Doesn't even make any sense...

What the hell do ANY of these content-free phrases actually mean?

These are not "plans". These are hand waving bullshit phrases that mean nothing absent a specific PLAN for a specific SITUATION.

Nitwits like Edwards, Obama, and the rest simply don't get it. There is NO useful use for the US military in Iraq (other than the odd knockoff of some identified terrorist - which will be rare since we probably will have no intelligence on the ground there - which is why we STILL don't have actionable intelligence on the goddamn Sunni INSURGENCY we have been fighting for four goddamn years!)

YOU want to pay for basing five thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand troops in Kuwait PERSONALLY? Maybe THEN you'd consider the question of exactly WHAT FOR?

There is NO viable mission for the US military in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia or anywhere else in the region - absent a desire to invade Iran.

The whole discussion has just ONE purpose: to make it look like the US military was not defeated in Iraq.

Sorry, but it was. Deal with it.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 14, 2007 10:03 PM