Originally posted by Yeager
dos, do you support a rapid and unconditional pull-out of all US forces from Iraq? I believe thats Obamas position.
I don't know that it is. He's supported a bill to draw down troop levels in 2008, one that is mostly political theater as it will go nowhere. Nothing will happen until 2009, if he were to ostensibly take office.
At that point, I believe Obama to be a pragmatist, and has perhaps shared his thoughts inside the party if not outside - and would mostly support the three-way split as proposed here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LbzLog3_EWs&feature=relatedBush once said that the US military will stand down when the Iraqis stand up. Well, guess what? With the exception of say the current president of Iraq, there isn't much of a trained political class in Iraq anymore. People of affluence have left.
Without some transitional period, it will become... as Hitchens has stated, the Congo of the Middle East. It will draw direct intervention, I mean if you think it's bad now with the Turks bombing the Kurds up north, heck... you could expect to see a Turkish moon flag flying in Baghdad if the Americans leave.
What has tainted all of this is the gross mismanagement of the whole situation. Perhaps there isn't another company besides KBR that can coordinate the massive logistics of building Fort Bremer in the Iraqi desert and setting up a KFC, Taco Bell and Baskin-Robbins within it, as well as handling all the latrines, water, power, etc etc. Perhaps not. But we're not building out Iraqi infrastructure fast enough, and the burn rate against the economy makes no sense. We're making war profiteers rich, killing American service people, and there is no sense of the end game - and to boot, we're not executing the actual objective - which was to have American oil interests control the oil and use it against the Saudis. THAT IS WHAT IRAQ WAS ABOUT. Establish a base in the middle east, take the oil, and create hegemony against the Saudi empire. THAT WAS IT, that was the strategy.
And right now, it isn't working. The Iranians are funneling in groups directing more efficient attacks, allied with the Sunnis - and the Kurds are fighting the Turks, and the Baathists are re-organizing and you have Taliban interests there as well. Control is a relative word. It's just getting to be too damn expensive to run this war.
So, I've said it plenty of times around here, you can pull troops back to cover the oil fields in the east north of Basra and the SW fields. Baghdad is worthless, we've taken all the data from the oil ministry. Leave. Let street fighting reign.
Let's at least make Iraq's balance sheet work out. If we leave, as in really leave, then Jordan, Syria, the Saudis, the Iranians and the Turks will ALL move troops into take the areas and split it by force.
