Where You Goin’?
(posted by Jim Henley)
At the American Conservative’s @tac blog, Kara Hopkins explains the amazing withdrawal plans of the Democratic candidates. "Looks like we’re going to be very busy—while getting out?" she writes of Hillary Clinton’s statements about leaving and training and protecting the massive US Embassy (and theme park?) and paying attention to Iranian influence and all sorts of things that sound like they will make packing to leave a really frazzling experience for the troops. As for the other guy:
Give Obama points for more consistently opposing the war, but he’s not so clear on the exit either.
The best you can say about Obama’s codicils to we’re leaving are that they do sound more contingent and temporary than Clinton’s, though of course that could be my Inner Shill talking. He says he’ll withdraw all combat troops but may send back "strike forces" to combat genocidal violence. But as Southeast Asia suggested in the 1970s, once America withdraws troops it’s politically harder to send them back. If one candidate is telling me "I’ll stay to do this little thing" while the other says "I may have to come back to do this little thing," the Lesser of Two Evils edge goes to the latter.
However, in an official position paper linked by Hopkins (pdf), the Obama campaign uses the dread term, "residual force." Here is what a residual force is: a force. So long as there are American troops in Iraq, particularly American troops immune to Iraqi law, Iraq will still be an American-occupied country. The political benefits of ending the Iraqi occupation come from ending the Iraqi occupation.
The reason to support Obama over Clinton and Clinton over McCain in re Iraq is not that either’s stated position is adequate to the moment. It’s just that the stated Dem positions commit the candidates to move in the direction of withdrawal. That opens the possibility - hope - that the momentum snowballs into a genuine withdrawal from the country. This sounds like thin gruel but it’s actually not my minimalist position for preferring the Dems to McCain. But that - is the subject of another post.
May 6th, 2008 at 8:16 am
I’m having a hard time mustering the energy to find out, so wonder if the answer’s clear from the position papers you’ve already read: What, if anything, does Obama say about the giant moated base that is the U.S. “embassy”, and about the other huge bases (Balad, and I forget the two or three others right now)?
May 6th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
I’ve seen neoconservatives propose the same thing: abandon responsibility for directly governing Iraq, and leave it to its own devices, but keep a regional strike force on the ground that can obliterate any government that engages in disapproved behavior.
IMO the whole point of withdrawal is that the U.S. has no right and no business policing the region, determining what behavior is “permitted” on the other side of the world, or being there at all.
May 6th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
While I certainly sympathize with people of Iraq and the unnecessary damage that has been inflicted on them by 17 years of US/UN aggression against innocent civilians, I’m not so sure I’d want the US to leave at this point. I kind of like having the imperial guard bogged down in a colonial war that’s draining the empire’s treasury. More importantly, I’d like for the resistance movements in Latin America-Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, etc.-to have a chance for survival. I’d be concerned if the troops came home the Neocons/Neolibs would turn their guns on the southern hemisphere.
May 6th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
If you change “Iraq” into “Afghanistan” then Obama, Lawrence Auster and I all agree on something!