Boot's Flailing

Max Boot tries to rationalize staying in Iraqi no matter what Iraq's government says. First:

This is part of a pattern for Maliki, who, though he won office and has stayed alive (literally and politically) with American support, has hardly been an unwavering friend of the United States -- at least in public. Although he was an opponent of the Saddam Hussein regime, he was not a proponent of the U.S.-led invasion.

Some might see in this Maliki as something of an Iraqi patriot or if one wants to put it in less ennobling terms, a nationalist. A guy who doesn't like to be oppressed by Saddam Hussein but also doesn't like to see foreigners conquer his country. Not that Bush is Saddam by any means, but surely I'm not the only American who sympathizes with the view "don't like the current government, wouldn't support foreign conquest." After all, maybe Maliki just thought that once the Americans were in Iraq, the proponents of the invasion would insist on staying forever -- no matter what the Iraqi people or their government wanted. Sure, that'd just be a paranoid conspiracy theory, but you know how prevalent those are in the Arab world.

So based on that Boot says we can safely ignore Maliki and just pay attention to different Iraqi leaders who he liked better. Brigadier General Bilal al-Dayni, who commands troops in Basra, for example was quoted in the Post as saying "we hope they will stay until 2020" which Boot tells us "is similar to the expectation of Iraq's defense minister, Abdul Qadir, who says his forces cannot assume full responsibility for internal security until 2012 and for external security until 2018."

Boot should perhaps consider that the current downswing in anti-American violence is very likely to become an upswing again if the United States insists on not only ignoring Iraqi opinion and Iraq's duly appointed leadership on this issue, but does so in a way that signals we'll never leave unless we're driven out by force.

Comments

But if the Iraqis energize efforts to make us leave through use of force that means we have to stay until those aggressors are defeated. Don't you see?

Posted by steve duncan | July 23, 2008 8:56 AM

You gotta love this line:

"To his credit, although he has postured as a fierce nationalist in public, Maliki has often accommodated American concerns in private."

In other words, to his credit Maliki is in fact an American puppet, despite some appearances to the contrary.

Anyway, if nothing else these developments are helping to clarify that people like Boot really are just imperialists (although one would have thought the name "Max Boot" was a tipoff).

Posted by DTM | July 23, 2008 8:59 AM

To exactly which degree need I concern myself with what Maliki supposedly actually, really feels deep down?

Posted by El Cid | July 23, 2008 9:04 AM

Exactly -- Boot and other neocons are revealing yet again how little they care about Iraqi sovereignty. Iraq can be treated as a "real government" only if it does what the United States wants it to do. As you suggest, sooner or later this atttude will produce a very bad backlash against the U.S., in Iraq and throughout the Arab Middle East.

Posted by Ross Kennedy | July 23, 2008 9:07 AM

I think Maliki's just morphing into a pretty good politician, saying seemingly forceful but actually ambiguous things the electorate wants to hear. He has provincial elections coming up, after all.

And what's he said is all that forceful. He's said he likes Obama's 16-month timetable -- "a little shorter or a little longer." And the Iraqi defense ministry has lately endorsed a December 2010 pullout, entirely possible if things go the way they're going now.

Now, the pullout may not be a complete pullout. The reports I've read say rebuilding Iraq's air force and navy will take decades. The police, corrupt and incompetent, are almost beyond saving but I guess you've got to try.

All of which to me means: The bulk of the troops will be out at the end of 2010 but there will be some sort of arrangements in place to continue training the police, air force and navy; and some kind of mutual defense policy.

Posted by DrewShaw | July 23, 2008 9:14 AM

hardly been an unwavering friend of the United States

Therefore, regardless of his argument, his position, or how well his views reflect Iraqi opinion, he is to be scorned or ignored.

Political correctness is all these guys have left. They evaluate arguments based on how politically reliable the source is. They can't talk about costs and benefits, they can't talk about ideals, all they can do is say, "but I wanna stay in Iraq forever!"

Attaturk caught Fred Hiatt doing something similar-- instead of arguing that Obama's plan is unsound, just point out that Iraq has oil, so we oughtta hang around indefinitely.

I can't believe how long it took me to realize what this was really about.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | July 23, 2008 9:23 AM

Were the subject not so grim, I would have laughed out loud at Boot's description of Maliki's errors:

For these reasons, he has been a consistent font of misguided predictions about how quickly U.S. forces could leave.

In May 2006, shortly after becoming prime minister, he claimed, "Our forces are capable of taking over the security in all Iraqi provinces within a year and a half."

In October 2006, when violence was spinning out of control, Maliki declared that it would be "only a matter of months" before his security forces could "take over the security portfolio entirely and keep some multinational forces only in a supporting role."

Someone needs to remind Boot that they are called Friedman units, not Maliki units, and that Maliki was just supporting the Bush/neocon line at the time.

I hope some hard-working blogger is out there assembling all of the neocon pundits who used Maliki's comments as they were intended to be used, to justify the U.S. presence.

Posted by politicalfootball | July 23, 2008 9:45 AM

Get it in your brains: Peoples don't like to be occupied. That's why there's still an insurgency and attacks at US troops.

Why anyone would be surprised that Iraq says leave shows how stupid the supposedly knowledgeable Neocons are.

Posted by Ohmy | July 23, 2008 10:17 AM

Boot should perhaps consider that the current downswing in anti-American violence is very likely to become an upswing again if the United States insists on not only ignoring Iraqi opinion and Iraq's duly appointed leadership on this issue, but does so in a way that signals we'll never leave unless we're driven out by force.

You, and all of us, should consider the possibility that Boot and his cadre really don't give a shit about that. They're not the ones who blood will stain the desert. They can sit at home getting a vicarious macho feeling from the sacrifices of others. They don't give a shit what Iraqi public opinion really is provided there is a divergence with what they want and with what the Iraqi PO says the Iraqi people want.

Posted by Josh R. | July 23, 2008 10:37 AM

What Drew Shaw said @9:14.

"The War" as such has been over for years, and the occupation ended when Iraq elected a government which requested the US presence under a unanimous UN mandate. Iraq remains central to a whole cluster of vital US interests, many of which we share with the entire industrialized world, and those expecting that we'll just throw a switch and "get out" are dreaming.

If you want the US out of the Persian Gulf sooner, bicycle to work, heat with wood, and generate your own electricity. And, of course, grow your own food, make your own clothes, and don't buy anything that's made of plastic or has to be delivered in a truck.

Posted by robert powell | July 23, 2008 10:40 AM

And here the bloodthirsty and fucking stupid robert powell makes clear why he supported slaughtering Iraqis

If you want the US out of the Persian Gulf sooner, bicycle to work, heat with wood, and generate your own electricity. And, of course, grow your own food, make your own clothes, and don't buy anything that's made of plastic or has to be delivered in a truck.

Shorter bloodthirsty moron: Those people are sitting on our oil. We will occupy them until the last drop is extracted.

Posted by Not as bloodthirsty as robert powell | July 23, 2008 10:44 AM

robert: Yes, I well remember those terrible days before the invasion. when the price of firewood rose to $4.40 a cord and the highways whirred with the sound of bicycle spokes. Then, thank God, the occupation began. And now some people want to return to that dark time? (Literally "dark"; there was no electricity!)

Posted by tomemos | July 23, 2008 10:48 AM

I think Maliki's just morphing into a pretty good politician...

I think so too, and he understands that he'll be able to work with Obama. If he asks us to go, we'll go. If he asks for some temporary help, we'll send it and it will actually be, ya' know, TEMPORARY.

Maliki understand that McCain will exert the same overbearing control that Bush has, will ignore the Iraqi gov't when convenient (like protecting murdering contractors from Iraqi law), and will undermine Maliki if he doesn't agree to permanent bases.

Yes, Maliki has indeed become a pretty good politician. And his soft endorsement of Obama is the proof.

Posted by LFC | July 23, 2008 10:49 AM

It is increasingly clear that when the administration said, in the runup to the invasion, "It's not about oil!", they were lying and they knew they were lying.

We are now finding out who was fooled by the lie, and who was in on it. It was always clear that Max "Stomping-On-A-Human-Face-Forever" Boot was in the second group. It now appears that the WaPo was too. See today's op-ed by Ruth Marcus.

Posted by roac | July 23, 2008 11:02 AM

It is increasingly clear that when the administration said, in the runup to the invasion, "It's not about oil!", they were lying and they knew they were lying.

We are now finding out who was fooled by the lie, and who was in on it. It was always clear that Max "Stomping-On-A-Human-Face-Forever" Boot was in the second group. It now appears that the WaPo was too. See today's op-ed by Ruth Marcus.

Posted by roac | July 23, 2008 11:04 AM

"Sure, that'd just be a paranoid conspiracy theory, but you know how prevalent those are in the Arab world."

Comments like this take the good, true point of the post (our past conduct has sadly made it the case that it's not at all irrational for someone in the Arab world to seriously doubt our intentions, which makes it much harder for us to be believed when we say we want to help), and mucks it up by hinting at a bad, untrue point (claims that paranoid conspiracy theories are very prevalent in the Arab world is just a lie cooked up by warmongers).

Posted by David J. Balan | July 23, 2008 11:08 AM

It was responding to Boot's batshit-crazy remarks like this that got me 'booted' off the commentary magazine website (altho it was fun trolling there while it lasted). He seriously believes in the U.S.'s imperial mandate. Apparently from the time that the first Scots-Irish foot landed on the eastern continental divide in defiance of the British Crown's treaty with the Cherokee and Iroquois, we have had an empire. It is the American role to expand it endlessly. Yes, in the 21st century someone posing as an intellectual actually believes in 'Manifest Destiny'.

The problem for democracies practicing empire is that we have given Maliki (and by extention Sadrists and Iran and Sistani and the whole crowd) a vote in our elections. As had been demonstrated in the last few days.

Altho Maliki's vote happens to be for the same guy I plan to vote for--I still think it sucks that he gets to help us choose. And for that extention of the franchise we have jerks like Boot to thank.

Posted by JohnMcC | July 23, 2008 11:59 AM

"Generate your own electricity"? I had no idea that Iraq provided our coal.

Posted by JasonL | July 23, 2008 1:43 PM

In a way it's only fair that Maliki and company get "a vote in our elections". They've got at least at much at stake in it as we do.

I'm dead set against imperialism, but that doesn't mean we can afford to allow the global system such as it is to completely disintegrate. People have always fought wars over vital commodities, and restraint of trade in them is a traditional causus belli. Mostly because of political interference, oil today is so expensive that a world depression is likely to be exacerbated if not caused by it. The consequences of such an eventuality would be incalculable. Bringing Iraqi oil on line up to its potential would be the most efficient way to bridge the world economy over to practical alternative sources with the capacity to support the economy, which we won't have for decades. This is much bigger than the cartoon malefactors beloved of the nutroots.

Posted by robert powell | July 23, 2008 2:25 PM

Bringing Iraqi oil on line up to its potential would be the most efficient way to bridge the world economy over to practical alternative sources with the capacity to support the economy, which we won't have for decades.

Translation: we must stay in Iraq to make sure that more Iraqi oil is brought on line to increase the oil supply and thus keep the price from skyrocketing.

That would eb a reasonable idea if I had any confidence that our staying in Iraq would actually accomplish this.

Posted by Glaivester | July 23, 2008 5:14 PM

Depends on what you mean by "stay in Iraq". It seems pretty clear that the days of large-scale American combat operations in Iraq are over. In a role of supporting the democratically elected Iraqi government, which is now in negotiations with the majors to rehabilitate Iraqi production infrastructure and bring new fields on line, we are a crucial component in getting this done.

Posted by robert powell | July 24, 2008 6:13 AM