Next Year in Iraq

President Bush recently sought to convey, through the curious medium of a Fox News interview, his assurance to the nations of the Middle East that America harbors no imperial design:

"We won't have permanent bases," Bush told Fox News television in the interview conducted at his retreat at Camp David, Maryland.

But he added, "I do believe it is in our interests and the interests of the Iraqi people that we do enter into an agreement on how we are going to conduct ourselves over the next years."

The revealing slip is the uncolloquial phrase "the next years." Nobody born in America and thinking straight and clear would ever speak that phrase. It mixes up "the coming years" (indefinite but distinctly long-term) and "next year" (as short as short-term gets).

The president was on the verge of saying "the next few years"; but he wanted more. He would surely have preferred to say, "the next decade or so." But he wanted more than that, too, and, at the same time, he needed to imply less. He has in mind fifty years at least; and we know it because he said it on May 30, 2007. The point of the number, 50 years, was that George W. Bush estimates the U.S. presence in Iraq by analogy with the U.S. presence in South Korea after 1952. Yet John McCain went unnecessarily far, as the president knows, when he said 100 years. To say that the U.S. will maintain superbases in Iraq for 100 years but that those bases are "not permanent" could seem like hairsplitting. Hence the awkward and not-native locution "the next years."

It is already clear that a vote for McCain is a vote for a permanent American imperial presence in the Middle East. (In the short term, it is a vote for war with Iran.) That is one reason the president stepped forward early to endorse McCain. But if the Democrats mean to challenge the Bush-McCain policy, they will have to do so on a more inspired basis than "Iraq has been very unpleasant, and staying there a long time will be very unpleasant." For McCain can take the high ground of noble self-sacrifice (supported by the Gothic conceit that if we leave the ground unsalted the terror will "follow us home"). McCain can take the high ground with better license than either Bush or Cheney, because, unlike them, he has a history of self-sacrifice for his country, and also because his delusions, being fresher than theirs, may glow more brightly for a time.

The only sure antidote to the 50-100 year plan is to explain to voters that our military expansion into the Middle East is wrong because the Middle East is not America's country and not America's property. It may not be useless to remind them that all the original justifications of the war are discredited, and that many people--including, perhaps, themselves, if they can imagine it--resent an occupying army all the more fiercely when the occupiers belong to a different race and religion. It can be added that we create more terrorists than we kill by the violence we inflict with the best of intentions; and that we have no right to subject our soldiers to the sheer thankless peril of occupying a country where half the people think it is praiseworthy to kill Americans.

Comments

[Crowhaul]

As always, excellent post.

What the Repugs don't get is that making the comparison to South Korea won't work anymore. Why? Because those days are over. We want an end to our imperialistic bases not only in South Korea, but Japan and Germany as well. We also want an end to our imperialistic claim to the bay on the island of Cuba.

Times have changed, and the days of supporting imperialism are well and truly over.

[duckfan00]

Bush and Cheney have the cover of the presidential primaries to start building Iraqi bases and get agreements set for our continued presence. Certainly McCain will follow their footprint in Iraq. Bush would love the Obama-Clinton race to be contentious and in doubt until the summer. He has had Petraeus and Gates already state that we are keeping all the troops in place in Iraq essentially through the summer. I have not heard Clinton or Obama address these developments and take a stand.

[Herrington]

The only thing complex about the debate over Iraq is the mendacity. The entire government seems to be in denial about the reason for the invasion and subsequent occupation. And if the real argument were broached, people in high places are going to be arrested. This is the lowest ebb of American political history. Everyone knows the truth and none will speak it. Oil.

So we are left with a tempest in a teapot. We are left arguing about a specious war on terrorism that makes about as much sense as declaring war on the neighbors dog who has bitten your child, serious, but not warranting burning down your neighbor"s house. That could be seen as an unwarranted escalation.

We will not lose by withdrawing from the occupation of Iraq. On the contrary, by withdrawing we will then begin the path to a victory that has been thrown off the rails by hubris, political and military miscalculation and misrepresentation. The Muslim world does not hold the American people or form of government responsible for Iraq. They, and rightly, hold George Bush responsible for Iraq. Only by repudiation of the Bush doctrines can we send a message to the world that it is safe from what it sees as American imperialism.

The Muslim world may hate the Bush administration, but is not for hate of freedom, it is for love of their own freedom. And to the extent they fear us, they will hate us. No, withdrawing from Iraq is not cowardice, not a defeat, it is instead a remedy for a well founded grievance against an administration that violated the sovereignty of another nation, and that nation being a good, bad or indifferent nation is irrelevant. It is a Muslim nation and has evoked Muslim solidarity.

And again, it is a specious argument in the teapot that has become American politics.

[JimReed]

These issues raised by the war which you speak of must be balanced against conservative values. Fiscal conservatives want to increase wealth, and a war for resources seems like a double win. Social conservatives see war in the middle east as a potential path to rapture. They have formed an alliance based on a divine symmetry of social conservatives wanting to hear what fiscal conservatives have learned to say.

[NoFactsJustTruth]

Also, Dr. B, I think your, "...where half the people think it is praiseworthy to kill Americans.", might be a somewhat conservative estimate. I've mostly read it's more like 2 out of 3, than evenly split.

Come to think of it though, that WAS before the surge in 'don't-shoot bribes'.

[NoFactsJustTruth]

I'm hopeful, David, that your words in some small way lash the backs of those 'selling out' The Constitution of OUR country for their personal political expediency, not to mention borrowing on OUR children's and grandchildren's productivity, from OTHER nations, for the foreseeable future.

I'm also realistic enough, though, to understand there'll likely be very little change in CONgress, regardless of the candidate eventually elected, unless 'We the(many) People' TAKE the responsibility of oversight upon OURselves, and relentlessly lash OUR failed OR criminal leadership with their own actions, just as you have here.

From the VERY beginning, when I first heard about these permanent bases some time ago, I KNEW that peace and stability in that region was NEVER a goal, and in fact that just the opposite was likely always instead TRUE.

Logic dictates that ONLY a 'perpetual enemy' will give justification to their cause of permanent bases, thereby also protecting their puppet governments as well as continued access to vast 'de-nationalized' natural resources - for their favored corporations. It just seems an intentionally vicious cycle when bases in Saudi Arabia were the stated primary justification for the Al Qaeda attacks on OUR country.

[mamacat]

"...and that is why we have had troops in Afghanistan and Iraq for over half a decade."
Does Bush think that everyone is stupid?

[Rockyman]

I hope it is transparent to all the intent of Bush and big oil. It is ALL about continuing the oil-addiction. Amazing how we are now all made prisoners of this paradigm. To break big-oil's control of us will take a resolute and determined effort. Do we have it in us?

[Larenzo]

And because we pissed away 4000 American lives, 30,000 limbless, and a trillion dollars, we should piss away another trillion dollars and countless lives down the same rathole? Duh...lies only get you so far.

[bavaria]

Have you asked the German people what they think of americans still there after almost 63 years? I tell you as a German-american
AMERICANS GO HOME !!!!

[andyboy]

What's worst about the devil Bush is his continued reference to how he is looking out for the Iraqi people. They are being slaughtered by the score daily.

This man is a heartless souless killer. Nothing more. The lack of respect for human life is alarming. An out of control sociopath is actually in charge of our nation.

The dead and maimed and displaced mean nothing to this man or his followers.

As the bombs continue to rip apart the innocent Iraqi's it's incredible how blind this man is. He created this Hellish nightmare for Iraq and now he won't let it end.

To think you could tear down all semblance of civilized society in Iraq, plunge it into anarchy and then miraculously transform it into some fairy tale democracy is the height of hubris and just plain stupidity.

The ends could never accomplish the means let alone justify them. This is a sin and a lie.

[research]

The Iraq Invasion and occupation is a war crime in progress.

You cannot win a War Crime.

The best we can do is to leave as soon as physically possible, tell the Iraqi we're sorry and stop killing torturing and meddling in their country.

[CeeCee]

I can just hear the Iraquis (oh, and everyone else) shouting: Liar, liar, pants on fire....

[Puller58]

This has been a kabuki dance for a long time. Congress has voted against permanent bases several times. (With republican support to boot) However, bases have and are being built. The huge american embassay will obviously need protection. Top it off with the ongoing concern over Iran and you have an idea of how "permanent" these bases are. The base of the republican party supports McCain's more wars, but the general public is seen as less supportive. That means political cover is seen as needed. Of course the Iraqis could always ask us to leave. Sure. That'll happen.

[desmirl]

Everything Bush tells us about Iraq is a lie. But we know he's our liar, 24/7. The important question lies ahead. Bush has 11 months left in office (I hope!!) and then he's history. The three people left in the race for November, 2008 are Hilary, Obama, and John McCain. Which of these people--if any--will tell us the truth about Iraq? My money is on--and only on--Obama.

[FullChat]

For those with Germany and Korea ideas about Iraq, consider this: the Iraqi government is on record (Cairo, 2006) that resisting occupiers is everyone's right - that it's OK for Iraqis to kill Americans. 75% of the population thinks killing Americans is OK.

Neither Japan or Germany had significant problems with "insurgents" - or nothing like we have in Iraq! The longer we're in Iraq, the more blood will spill - both of our valiant soldiers and of our civilians.

We're busy arming the next part of the civil war by arming and paying the Sunni...