Diehl wants a "forever" presence in Iraq

 
Jackson Diehl, Hiatt's deputy at the Washington Post editorial page has a piece on that page today.  This one is under his own name.

Diehl, who was a cheerleader for the Iraq War from the beginning, no, from before the beginning, apparently remains certain that the whole thing has been a wondrous adventure filled with  benefits for the United States.  What are those benefits in his mind?  These benefits are not clear to me, but, then, I was not a cheerleader for the war. 

Diehl argues that without US troops in Iraq, that country will inevitably fall into the orbit of Iran becoming a more easterly version of what the neocons think Syria to be.  Well, pilgrim, if that was an "inevitable" outcome of a post-Saddam Iraq devoid of a permanent Amercain garrison, what was the logic of creating such a situation?  Saddam, however awful he was, nevertheless kept the Iranians out of Iraq.  Diehl raises the possibility that Iraq, deprived of American occupation troops, may decide to spend its burgeoning oil revenues to build armed forces that can actually defend the country against; Iran, Israeli air incursions, Sunni Arab subversion, etc.  Diehl observes correctly that such a restoration of the status quo ante bellum in Iraq would be seen as a threat in the Middle East.

So what is it that the neocon press, AIPAC and ???????? wanted in Iraq?  It surely was not vengeance for 9/11.  They knew that the Iraqi government had nothing to do with that.  Perhaps the American sheeple did not know that, but the neocons knew it.  It was not the elimination of Iraq's nuclear weapons program.  It did not exist and the neocons knew that. (see my article "Drinking the Koolaid")  It was not an intention to seize Iraq's petroleum resources.  The friends of the neocons in the Bush Administration never made a move in that direction.  No, it was not any of those things. 

Evidently it was the desire for the US to be a "player" in the big sand box that is the Middle East.  Now, they wish for the US to remain an "on the ground," "forever' player there.  What the hell for?  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/if-we-retreat-from-iraq-will-iran-take-over/2011/07/14/gIQA4ZscKI_story.html?hpid=z5

Comments

[arbogast]

"What the hell for? pl"

I assume this is a rhetorical question.

[Cato the Censor]

To some, any amount of contorted, violent effort, no matter how pointless, is preferable to an admission of defeat. America leaving Iraq is just that to neocons.

[confusedponderer]

If one adds in what the Bushies did as well, giving carte blanche to Israel (if the Palestine Papers are any indication, the Pals negotiated **against** both the US and Israel), then the conclusion is that apparently the neocons and Likudniks hoped that the US and Israel together could compel Israel's neighbours in the broadest sense into a situation where they would have to yield to Israeli and US demands under overwhelming force.

The idea appears to have been to lend the Israelis a hand in achieving that clean break, with the US as guarantor of Israeli safety and the New Iraq and Turkey as the 'lily pad' to project that power against Israel's enemies.

In their minds, the war wasn't supposed to end in Baghdad. It was supposed to end in Beirut. And after that ... oh wait, I can't find my copy of 'An End to Evil', I probably left it on the toilet.

[J]

Diehl, like Hiatt, appear to want U.S. to be Israel's Mideast 'permanent on-the-ground-nursemaid' for when Israel stumbles and stuffs its own pooch.

[J]

Colonel,

Hiatt and Diehl couldn't be agents for a foreign government, now could they?

[Matthew]

Without an American success, you can't sell future American wars of choice. Without wars of choice, Americans do "crazy" things like live normal lives. Don't neo-cons believe that people will descend into triviality without the Supermen running our lives?

On a very basic level, Neo-Cons actually hate our nation and its people. They hate us for wanting to be ordinary.

[ked]

"They hate us for wanting to be ordinary."

Exceptionalism + jingoism + Christianism = (-)$$$.

[optimax]

Mathew

Neocons also "hate us for our freedom," 9/11 gives them a chance to dismantle it peicemeal.

[mbrenner]

Please..Please

The Obama White House and the Pentagon are moving heaven and earth to keep a substantial military presence in Iraq. That includes four giant air bases, 20,000 or multi-capable troops, and a host of CIA operatives complemented by the usual assortment of hirelings. What is the strategic purpose? The administration has not leveled with us about their aims. Nonetheless, they are easily inferred.

1.To serve as part of the cordon encircling Iran able to support coercive diplomacy and possibly coercive force itself. They are not there to defend Iraq from Iran (the cover story) since the Iraqi leadership itself has no fear of an attack from their brthren. I don't recall Saddam and Khomeini walking hand-in-hand in Tehran gardens.

2. To serve as a component of the base network extending from the Gulf well into Central Asia. That conforms to the 'full spectrum dominance' concept that seeks to dominate militarily every global region. Mission? Anything and everything. Cost concerns? Austerity doesn't play when national security is at stake.

3. To serve as leverage to influence domestic Iraqi politics and policy. The Pentagon has been relentless is currying favor with the new Iraqi army which is seen as their card in the political game. Some factions in the Iraqi army want the U.S. to stick around so as to guarantee a smooth flow of aid. A few even see this as a national need as opposed to a strictly private one since currently they are outgunned by the Kurdish Peshmega. The Kurds of course want us around to serve as a check on the Arab government in Baghdad. How to reconcile these last two? Well, Washington has a genius for inventive methods to square circles - even if their record to date is one of perfect failure.

4. The advertised notion that a substantial American military force on Iraqi soil plays a complementary role to our vice-regal embassy in ensuring domestic political stability is spin without empirical or logical foundation. The United States has been the catalyst to the civil strife that has bedeviled the country for the past eight years. We are not a mollifying element. Internal conflicts have their own dynamic. In addition, most Iraqis despise us – a factor contributing to fraught conditions and making any residual American personnel natural targets.

There is an old blues tune made famous by Mississippi John Hurt;

"I'm just a poor boy far from home,
and I don't got no friends.
So please..please let me stay the night."
(I'm afraid of those Persians lurking in the dark)

[bth]

Just a note that we are suddenly armoring the sides of our MRAPS and MATVs in Iraq to address Iranian EFPs. That is a big theater specific expenditure for a few more months and a boat home for these vehicles.

http://www.stripes.com/mraps-in-iraq-being-armored-against-iran-made-bombs-1.149346

[fred]

The only thing wrong with Panetta's "make a damned decision" is that it should be addressed to his boss.

Diehl would probably prefer a wily, skillful Mideast player who knows Iran and whom the Neocons have trusted with our treasure and blood for years - Ahmed Chalibi. That wise neocon choice worked so well the last time.

[RLKirtley]

For the first couple of years after the Iraq War started I posted a comment on many Right Wing sites that while a little muddled, I thought since there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to what we were doing was as good as any explanaion. Since there still isn't a logical answer,it's as good as any....We went to Iraq to make it 'Our Jewel in the Crown'.Silly I know,but hasn't the whole thing been very silly(Along with many other things we have done).

[Charles I]

Cripes if Iraq's the jewel, I'm not looking forward to seeing the rest of the crown.

[Robert]

I read once that Saddam Hussein paid surviving family members of Palestinian suicide bombers the equivalent of $25,000 if they killed an Israeli. I don't have a source for this.

I also read that Iraq's 300 T-72s were the last great Arab tank army and that the Israelis were afraid of it.

Those are two motives for the Israelis to want to eliminate Saddam Hussein. Every other Arab leader in the pre-Arab Spring Middle East had been neutralized except the mullahs in Iran.

I am interested in the roles of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. Bush lost the 2000 election and apparently wanted to run the "War Leader" play from the GOP game book to get ready for 2004, so he was up for anything that would emphasize his commander-in-chiefness. Cheney? He spent his teen years admiring the Halliburton energy people working in Wyoming and has always been a power man - in all of its forms. Apparently, the US energy plan prepared in 2001 and 2002 assumed a US take-over of Iraq's crude. Recall how the Supreme Court refused to take on the suit to release the plan to the public? And Rumsfeld? Why did he set up the Office of Special Plans - the neocon's corner office in the Pentagon and the White House - from the very beginning? That is an intriguing act when set alongside Cheney's Iraq oil ambitions. It would seem to indicate that there had been a conspiracy to prosecute a war of aggression, given the OSP's role in misleading the American public by stovepiping the lies about Iraq's weaponry to Cheney, Bush, and Powell.

Robert