The Permanent Presence

Spencer Ackerman translates the White House's principles for perpetual occupation of Iraq out of the obfuscatorese:

A "democratic Iraq" here means the Shiite-led Iraqi government. The current political arrangement will receive U.S. military protection against coups or any other internal subversion. That's something the Iraqi government wants desperately: not only is it massively unpopular, even among Iraqi Shiites, but the increasing U.S.-Sunni security cooperation strikes the Shiite government -- with some justification -- as a recipe for a future coup.

I'll be interested to see what the Democratic hawks have to say about that. For a long time, they've been getting by with things like Shawn Brimley's formula that "The next President will need options beyond simply 'leave ASAP' and 'stay the course.'" This, though, relies on a strawman characterization of Bush's policies to generate the sense of separation from the administration. The question here isn't whether we should literally stay the course, the question is whether or not we should undertake an open-ended commitment to propping up whatever form of Iraqi government will agree to pay host to our military bases.

Comments

Re Matthew's comment " the question is whether or not we should undertake an open-ended commitment to propping up whatever form of Iraqi government will agree to pay host to our military bases."
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Matthew forgot to add "and give us the oil".

1) Actually, that's not the PRECISE wording -- the precise wording is "The Americans appeared generally favorable subject to negotiations on the details, which include preferential treatment for American investments, according to the Iraqi officials involved in the discussions."

The people who will benefit from that "preferential treatment" is left as an exercise for the reader. I suggest they start will a list of the big donors to the Bush/Cheney past political campaigns.

The extent to which any of that "preferential treatment" will flow to the impoverished common Iraqi citizen -- or to the American families who have lost 3700+ sons/fathers/husbands or who are among the thousands who have sons/fathers/husbands crippled for life -- is also left as an exercise for the reader.

Anyone who still doesn't get the point might ask themselves whether Hillary Clinton will be any less of a whore for wealthy interests than George Bush has been.

Posted by Don Williams | November 26, 2007 11:52 AM

Yes, the above comment was directed to you, Robert Powell.

Posted by Don Williams | November 26, 2007 11:58 AM

PS When George W leaves office, the Federal debt will be $4 TRILLION!! more than what he promised in Feb 2001. He financed his tax cut for the rich -- and his disasterous war in Iraq -- by stealing $Trillions from the Trust Funds for Social Security and Medicare.

Show me where there is profit -- or "Victory" -- in that for the common citizen.

The greedy, corrupt traitors among our own people are a far greater threat to us than Al Qaeda could ever hope to be.

Posted by Don Williams | November 26, 2007 12:02 PM

In fact the US should be supporting the Shia and Kurd lead government, instead of playing footsie with Sunni warlords and insurgency leaders. The government was democratically elected and represents a substantial majority of the country. Some of the Sunni groups boycotted elections because they do not want an Iraq governed by its majority. To hell with them, to hell with their insurgency, to hell with their undemocratic political demands and to hell with their oil cravings. Let's give the government the military and financial tools it needs to defend itself and stabilize its rule - and get out!

And let's encourage the government to work with its neighbors in Iran who are equally eager to provide financial and military support and strengthen commercial ties. Iran has been trying for two years to shore up the Iraqi government and bring some stability to the country, an abundantly sensible policy for the Iranians, while the US has been harassing and locking up legitimate Iranian diplomats and commercial agents who are attempting to work with the Kurds and Shia. And then our government has the nerve to say that this destabilizing harassment and factional gamesmanship is actually aimed at Iranian attempts to destabilize the Iraqi government - an imagined policy which a moment's clear thinking should be enough to dispel as absurd.

We could have gotten out of Iraq long ago if the administration had not decided to actively forestall Iraqi stabilization and weaken the elected government by playing around with the Sunni enemies of the government (and the US military for that matter) and hindering the efforts of the ruling coalition to establish commercial ties with non-American parties - apparently mainly in order to stick it to Iran.

Posted by Dan Kervick | November 26, 2007 12:23 PM

Why wouldn't we support a democratically elected government. Yglesias is like most leftists: if the U.S. government supports a democratically elected foreign government, he claims it's a recipe for getting involved in other countries' conflicts; if the U.S. government supports an autocratic government, he claims we're proppping up foreign dictatorships, and that's "why they hate us." The only constant is "the idiot who praises with enthusiastic tone/All centuries but this and every country but his own."

Posted by y81 | November 26, 2007 12:51 PM

"The question here isn't whether we should literally stay the course, the question is whether or not we should undertake an open-ended commitment to propping up whatever form of Iraqi government will agree to pay host to our military bases."

Yep. Of all the maddening failures of the current Democratic leadership, their inability to frame the question this way is far and away the worst.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | November 26, 2007 12:53 PM

"PS When George W leaves office, the Federal debt will be $4 TRILLION!! more than what he promised in Feb 2001."

And how much larger will the U.S. economy be than it was in 2001? The absolute size of the debt isn't meaningful; its size relative to GDP is. Our debt as a percentage of GDP is comparable to that of countries such as France and Germany. It would be better if it were lower, but in order to lower the debt-to-GDP ratio meaningfully, we'd need to reform entitlement spending.

Posted by Fred | November 26, 2007 1:27 PM

It's not hard to see Maliki's reasoning here.

The writing has been on the wall for a while, but with the drumbeat to an attack on Iran upping in tempo while the US enables the arming and funding of the formerly evil Sunni Insurgency by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, it must be pretty obvious to him that his future survival rests on giving the US what it wants before Iran is attacked and the 'Sunni Bad/Shia Good' policy does a 180 degree flip-flop.

I've said it elsewhere, but it bears repeating here. Maliki appears to be taking a leaf out of Mahmoud Abbas's playbook and selling out his own people to guarantee the survival of his faction when the balloon goes up.

But of course, no one could have forseen that the US might have need of a Shia Quisling when attacking Shia Iran pisses off the Shia majority in Iraq.

Posted by Tony J | November 26, 2007 1:39 PM

I would like it if our interests in the Greater Persian Gulf could be safeguarded by Jeffersonian Democrats, or maybe The Superfriends.

I would like it if we had a world economy that didn't depend on petroleum, or at least in the interim oil revenues in places like Iraq could be put in a trust fund as in Norway and Alaska for equitable distribution.

I would like it if we could protect our interests more efficiently, in particular avoiding enormous Federal boondogles like much of the "reconstruction" charade in Iraq, at least not tossing shrink-wrapped pallets of $100 bills out of helicopter doors to "allies" of dubious reliability.

I would like it if Iran represented an entirely benign presence in Iraq and the region in general, and would evolve into a friendly and cooperative member of the world community without any input from us.

In the real world, we have to deal with real problems and real people. It's clear to me that there is no more legitimate and representative government on offer in Iraq, or for that matter in any Arab country, than the one we have there now. With luck, having already made all of the available mistakes, perhaps we can act as a "balancer" between the factions as Iraq evolves into a loose Federal state with lots of local autonomy, especially in security, a peaceful and reasonably pro-Western outlook, and a partner in efforts to bring Iran back into the community of respectable nations. We can't do it by remote control.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 26, 2007 1:48 PM

so that purple finger bullshit was just pabulum for the rubes, then, Robert?

If a policy has to have so many lies told about it, it's probably not a great policy.

Posted by blatherskite | November 26, 2007 2:05 PM

"And how much larger will the U.S. economy be than it was in 2001? The absolute size of the debt isn't meaningful; its size relative to GDP is. Our debt as a percentage of GDP is comparable to that of countries such as France and Germany. It would be better if it were lower, but in order to lower the debt-to-GDP ratio meaningfully, we'd need to reform entitlement spending."

Of course, the next question is what am I getting as an individual compared to our GDP and what I am I getting from my government per tax dollar paid? So while GDP may be higher, it doesn't help that I make about the same as I did in 2001 and it doesn't help that that salary doesn't go as far as it did in 2001 what with gas prices doubling, milk prices going through the roof, insurance costs skyrocketing, etc. All I can do is thank the powers that be that I don't live on the Gulf Coast or in lower Manhattan. I am certainly getting much less from my government these days unless you count making sure I don't carry a bottle of water into airport security as getting some good bang for my buck!

Posted by Eddie | November 26, 2007 2:13 PM

"community of respectable nations"?

Oh, like the "respectable" US which launches an illegal war of aggression on Iraq based on a pack of risible lies, murders hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants, creating millions of refugees, destroying its infrastructure and creating a failed state and using that as a pretext to brutally occupy the place there till the oil is gone?

Posted by ran | November 26, 2007 2:21 PM

blatherskite--no, "that purple finger bullshit" was how Irag got the most legitimate and representative government in the Arab world.

ran--you forgot we also caused Global Warming, Hurricane Katrina, the ebola virus, and AIDS. George Bush and the CIA conspired with Mossad to destroy the WTC in order to avoid asbestos claims against Jewish insurance companies, and Saddam Hussein, who was really born in Texas, used American nerve gas to kill kazillions. Right on!

Posted by Robert Powell | November 26, 2007 3:43 PM

Re Fred's comment "The absolute size of the debt isn't meaningful; its size relative to GDP is."
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1) Notice that Fred doesn't continue that line of analysis --other than raising it as a red herring. Because if he did, he would have to note that federal debt as a percentage of GDP was
around 32.5% when Reagan entered office.

2) Reagan and George H Bush drove the debt up to around 66 percent of GDP. Bill Clinton managed to push the debt down to around 59 percent of GDP. George Bush is driving it back up to around 69 percent of GDP.

3)This graph makes clear that REPUBLICAN Presidents are DISASTERS for the taxpayer -- their claims of being "fiscal conservatives" are BALD-FACED LIES.
See http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

4) But the situation is actually far worst. The huge baby boomer cohort could take on debt in 1980 -- it was young and its wages were growing. But at this point in time, that cohort is entering retirement --and about to discover that the Republicans have stolen most of its pension fund. US Government UNFUNDED LIABILITIES --including Social Security and Medicare -- are a $50 TRILLION disaster. The only assets the Trust Funds have are about $4 Trillion in Bush IOUS --which are worthless.

Posted by Don Williams | November 26, 2007 3:50 PM

Sure, rather than address what it is you're actually cheering on, change the subject Bob.

Bottom line, we have as much business invading and occupying Iraq as Germany had invading and occupying Poland at the start of WW2, and the perpetrators of this massive war crime and crime against humanity - Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith et al - belong in The Hague answering for it.

Posted by ran | November 26, 2007 4:00 PM

Fred: "We need to reform entitlement spending."
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By that, I would guess that you mean REDUCE entitlement spending. Yet, I see that you are not suggesting that we reduce our foreign entanglements and military expenditures. This is a clear sign that we might want to engage in a national conversation about "guns vs. butter" since we are facing an increasingly harsh domestic agenda in the face of an increasingly expensive foreign agenda.

Posted by z adura | November 26, 2007 4:01 PM

"In the real world, we have to deal with real problems and real people. It's clear to me that there is no more legitimate and representative government on offer in Iraq, or for that matter in any Arab country, than the one we have there now. With luck, having already made all of the available mistakes, perhaps we can act as a "balancer" between the factions as Iraq evolves into a loose Federal state with lots of local autonomy, especially in security, a peaceful and reasonably pro-Western outlook, and a partner in efforts to bring Iran back into the community of respectable nations. We can't do it by remote control."

Robert Powell,

Iraq is not going to "evolve" into a loose federal state with lots of local autonomy. It will became one either through 1)a peaceful political reconciliation between Shiite, Sunni, and Kurd that leads to a Constitutional Convention that abolishes the current unitary state and replaces it with a federal or confederal state or 2)a stalemated sectarian civil war that creates neat & distinct geographical strongholds for Shiite, Sunni, and Kurd, and in which each faction becomes eager to sue for peace in order to preserve this strongholds. Either method sows the seeds of destruction for the current unitary national government in Bagdhad. Therefore, preserving the current represenative & legitimate government in Bagdhad, while the facilitating the evolution of a loose federal state, are mutually exclusive goals.

Moreover, the presence of over 100,000 troops in Iraq has so far been horribly ineffective at preserving the current government or facilitating the evolution of a loose federal state. In the eyes of both Sunni and Shia Iraqi Arabs, and in the eyes of many Iraqi Kurds as wellk, the presence of such a large occupying force indicates that the current Bagdhad government is merely a puppet of the US, and therefore the current Bagdhad is neither represenative nor legitimate. In addition, the American presence removes all incentives for Iraq's political actors to reach a peaceful political reconciliation, and has provided the Sunni and Shiite militias with the resources and skills to wage even more effective civil war against each other. So while we can't achieve peaceful goals in Iraq via remote control, we also cannot achieve from defacto involvement and participation in Iraq's sectarian civil war.

Posted by eltoro | November 26, 2007 4:30 PM

Our debt as a percentage of GDP is comparable to that of countries such as France and Germany. It would be better if it were lower, but in order to lower the debt-to-GDP ratio meaningfully, we'd need to reform entitlement spending.

Yeah! Which is THE perfect excuse to continue prosecuting multi-trillion dollar wars in the name of national security and world peace! Less health care -- keep your eye on the real culprit people!

Posted by Bill | November 26, 2007 4:34 PM

"By that, I would guess that you mean REDUCE entitlement spending"

z adora,

We don't need to REDUCE entitlement spending, but we do need to slow its rate of growth. This would be true even if all of our commitments in Iraq ended tomorrow. Our annual entitlement spending is about 700% more than our annual Iraq spending, and it's growing a lot faster. And of course, unlike Iraq, abandoning it isn't an option.

Posted by Fred | November 26, 2007 4:39 PM

As for the election being a step toward democracy in Iraq: please. It was as much of a step towards peaceful democracy in Iraq as the 1860 Presidential election was a step towards it in the US, and for exactly the same reason. (I suppose the logical response for the Administration could be to start comparing al-Maliki to Abraham Lincoln; it would certainly be no more absurd than a lot of the other things they've done.)

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | November 26, 2007 5:24 PM

Maybe Fred could consider the Bush Administration from another viewpoint. There are roughly 116 million households in the USA but roughly 45% of them have incomes of $40,000 or less. They obviously can't pay anything on the federal debt.

If we split the $4 Trillion in debt Bush has run up among the remaining 53 million households, we get a bill of $75,472 per household. Unless Fred feels cavalier about writting a check in that amount to the US Treasury, then maybe he shouldn't feel so cavalier about Bush's performance.

As I've noted before, there IS a silver lining to the Bush Administration. Bush has screwed millions of middle-class Republicans like dogs -- their life savings are toast -- and yet they lack the intelligence to realize it yet.

So those people like Fred who are still making earnest attempts to rationalize Bush's reign give the rest of us reasons to break out in guffaws. It's not quite as comical as Jay Leno --but close.

Posted by Don Williams | November 26, 2007 5:41 PM

"Our annual entitlement spending is about 700% more than our annual Iraq spending, and it's growing a lot faster."

Since the "growth" of spending on the Iraq war started from zero five years ago to the current spending of about $150 billion (current spending, not including future commitments) per year, I think you'd be hard pressed to make much of an argument here. I think it is also fair to say that the SS Trust Fund, the great bugbear of entitlement axers, would have been fine if we'd only used the $2 trillion we will spend on Iraq on retirees instead.

Posted by z adura | November 26, 2007 5:53 PM

Plus Fred also doesn't realize that Bush's $2 Trillion tax cut for the rich stimulated CHINA's economy --not the USA's. Just compare the increase in US business investment in recent years with the capital flowing from the US into China.

When Bush came into office in Jan 2001, the Dow was at 10,600. In TODAY's dollars (i.e. adjusted for inflation) , that would be equal to 12,600.

The Dow closed today at 12,742. That's not much appreciation in value after 7 YEARs of this Bush boom Fred seems to think we've been having. A few more days and the Dow will be below 12,600 -- showing a net LOSS after 7 years of Bush's stewardship.

Posted by Don Williams | November 26, 2007 6:14 PM

"the most legitimate and representative government in the Arab world"

right, a government powerless to do jackshit when trigger-happy merc goons (not to mention the equally immune and trigger-happy occupation troops) run around murdering its citizens, a government under permanent military occupation and utterly dependent on the occupiers for its members' continued breathing, is a "government" in name only.

do you get paid to catapult this horseshit propaganda?

Posted by ran | November 26, 2007 8:31 PM

Not to mention that seven or eight months from now, we will officially be in a recession - and by some accounts, a bad one.

In fact, one guy is predicting about 4.5 trillion dollars - ten percent of the wealth of the nation - is about to disappear.

And that's IF Bush does NOT attack Iran and drive the oil price up to $200-plus per barrel AND make China dump the US dollar.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | November 26, 2007 11:05 PM

ran--you've given no indication of being able to identify propaganda. By the best data available, our invasion of Iraq killed about 10% of the number of Iraqis the UN sanctions regime we supported did, and a significant number of that 10% were actually enemies rather than the innocents murdered by sanctions. Moreover, even the vast number killed by sanctions represented less than a third of the people killed by the Ba'athist regimes various spasms of repression, genocide, and wars of aggression. Some war crime.

Pontification by various "experts" notwithstanding, I've seen little in the way of hard evidence to support the assertion that anything like an all-out sectarian civil war is in the offing. Like a large number of post-Soviet dictatorships, Iraq is going through a bloody power struggle. Unlike a number of the others, we are in a position there to moderate the effects and participate in the transition to a more effective state than currently exists, which itself is a significant improvement over the one it replaced. Data on this process is much more likely to come from genuine experts on, and in Iraq like Crocker and Petraeus than from hysterical partisan bloggers.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 27, 2007 2:35 AM

"I've seen little in the way of hard evidence to support the assertion that anything like an all-out sectarian civil war is in the offing."

So the bombing of Shiite holy places by Sunnis, the ethnic cleansing of Sunnis out of Shiite neighborhoods in Bagdhad (anc vice versa), the Shiite hanging party of Saddam Hussein, the murders perpetuated by militias led by sectarian Shiite or Sunni clerics, etc., are just random acts of violence signifying no broader pattern or problem.

So when the Shiite dominated Bagdhad government objects to the US military arming Sunni insurgents as part of its program of destroying Al Qaeda, that's just simple hysteria on their part. There's no real life basis to their concerns.

Posted by eltoro | November 27, 2007 4:16 PM