America Staying in Iraq Forever

Iraq news about America staying in Iraq basically forever is in the news again.

Of course, that is not what it is called. President Bush talks about the “Korean Model”. In Korea, America still has about 40,000 troops garrisoned near the DMZ even though the cease fire started in 1953.

The Republicans, as you might expect, go along with just about anything Bush wants. And the Democrats come up with a few half baked ideas about withdrawing all but a few thousand, or is it a few tens of thousands, of troops and call it a plan.

The Democrats talk about starting the draw down of troops right away. Troops remaining in Iraq would be restricted to three missions: counter terrorism, training Iraqi security forces and protecting U.S. assets, including diplomats. Perhaps we should say especially diplomats as the monstrous America Embassy in Baghdad, the largest in the world, will need a lot of protection. It is considered such a dangerous posting the State Department is having to force diplomatic personnel to accept assignments there.

Once again there is widespread disagreement about how many troops the Democrats are talking about for near term withdrawal. Is it 10,000 or is it 70,000? No one can provide a clean answer because no one really knows how the Iraq mess will play out. One thing we do know is that the US has built and is expanding a number of mega bases in Iraq. It is highly unlikely we will ever give up these strategic bases in the Middle East unless we are at the wrong end of a massive number of AK47’s and are driven out.

As usual the politicians grand plans mean little. They are absolutely divorced from the reality found on the Iraq ground. Most Iraqis want us out. Most Americans want us out. Yet the American politicians are so seeped in hubris they can not conceive of a full withdrawal.

There would be a grave danger to the remaining troops should a partial draw down of a significant number of troops take place. If we are stretched thin in Iraq with 160,000 troops how thin and exposed will we be with 70,000 troops, even if they are largely confined to a few mega bases?

You need to look no further than Afghanistan to get a good idea as to how things in Iraq will go with a partial withdrawal. After six years of fighting the rag tag but tough Taliban the Taliban forces now control about 50% of the country side. That is the reality of foreigners invading, occupying, and trying to win wars in this part of the world.

No foreign power has ever been able to do it going back over 5,000 years. The combination of fighting isolation, terrain, Islamic culture, disease, weather, a warrior culture, and fanaticism have been too tough to overcome, at least for long. 

In the end every military adventure by a foreign power into the home of the mountain and desert tribes ended in a sorry withdrawal by a discouraged and defeated foreign power. The British and the Russians know this full well. Even high tech kill them at a distance America is having trouble against low tech in your face tactics. In time the odds say that America will learn the lesson as well.

It’s difficult for any imperial power to keep invading, occupying, and governing distance lands. The cost of endless wars sooner or later will bring the imperial power down. So far in the history of the world every imperial power has eventually collapsed.

Except for one. The American Empire lives on.  At least for now, although it seems to be staggering a bit as its foreign adventures and gross mismanagement have pushed the mighty nation into its dubious status as the world’s largest debtor. Never before have so few citizens owned so much to so many foreign nations.

America is not exempt from the forces that eventually collapse empires. Unless we learn to take care of our own people at home, get our financial house in order, stop our endless wars, and not try to garrison the globe  (The US has over 730 bases across the world, perhaps a lot more as we now have “secret bases”) our reign as an imperial power may be very short lived.

Planning to stay in Iraq forever will only add to the stresses already showing up in the fabric of imperial America. Many good American citizens already sense this as being true. Too bad they continue to elect to office such a bunch of self serving TV sound bite conscious politicians who are incapable of being statesmen and who remain throughout their careers as shortsighted, petty, pompous, politicians. 

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