One step forward…

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Ezra Klein, commenting on the recent Kyl-Lieberman amendment, makes this great point:

The Senate’s adoption of the Lieberman/Kyl amendment designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a “terrorist group” isn’t merely embarrassing, it’s counterproductive. Designating the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group — which in contemporary American terms means they’re a target — makes it all the more important for Iran to keep us tied up and weakened in Iraq. The more we telegraph that we’d like to devote forces to regime change or strikes in Tehran, the stronger Iran’s incentive to keep Iraq an unstable morass trapping ever-greater numbers of American troops who can’t be easily diverted from a chaotic mission and are geographically vulnerable to Iranian counter-attack.

Like I said, Ezra makes a good point, but there’s more to it. Counterproductive describes the GOP agenda for most of the Bush term. For example: North Korea. Bush spent 5 years telling everybody that Clinton was an appeaser for dealing with the North Koreans. Nevermind that they actually halted their nuclear program. Clinton did it = it was bad. So, Bush talked hard, and blustered about, refused to negotiate with one of the Axis of Evil, and North Korea ended up with a handful of nukes.

Then, suddenly this February, diplomacy was pursued, and talks are underway this week to negotiate the transfer of 950,000 tonnes of heavy fuel, after the DPRK halts its nuclear program. In other words, a return to the status quo. Oh, and North Korea now has nuclear weapons. There’s that, I guess.

What about Jose Padilla? Arrested in 2002, he was then held for years while the Bush Administration argued he had no rights to a lawyer or to fight his imprisonment before a trial of his peers. Again, let’s forget the Constitution and Bill of Rights thingies, they don’t apply. It’s not like Padilla was a citizen or anything. According to Bush, he was a threat to national security, and couldn’t be allowed to communicate with an attorney.

Then, suddenly, when the Supreme Court was just about to rule on whether or not Bush could hold Padilla indefinitely, the Administration caved and charged Padilla.

Are we seeing a pattern here?

The buck stops where?

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There was an interesting theme running through the Webernets yesterday regarding the Iraq war, the surge, and the inevitable aftermath of our future withdrawl. First, Juan Cole suggests that Democrats are going to be dragged through the mud when, after Bush leaves office, the U.S. begins to reduce the number of troops in Iraq. Josh Marshall has more:

Given the stabilization of Republican support for the war, there’s not a lot Democrats can do to force the president to end the war during his term. Even if you assume heroic budgetary battles, there’s just not enough time left. Even the most aggressive timetables for withdrawal would take upwards of a year to execute. And Bush is down to 18 months.

Add to that the fact that Cole believes that all hell really will break loose once US troops leave — a not improbable assumption. And you come up with the conclusion that a Democratic president comes into office in early 2009 just in time to oversee Iraq’s descent into anarchy.

Along the same lines, Garance Franke-Ruta writes about Bush’s planned announcement to bring 30,000 troops home next summer:

Should things go according to plan, by next summer, Bush will be in a position to claim credit for a drawdown. Will Americans breathe sighs of relief and thankfulness for this, even though they will be right back where they were in early 2007? The tale of the rabbi suggests the answer will be yes.

Kevin Drum is all over this one, however:

Everyone on the planet knows perfectly well that we’re not withdrawing these troops next year because we’ve achieved some grand success on the ground in Iraq. We haven’t, and Bush knows it. We’re withdrawing them because the Army has no operational choice.

The big question, of course, is whether the American people will buy it. Do you?

Stating the obvious

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The LA Times reports what everybody else is thinking:

The talk in Washington on Monday was all about troop reductions, yet it also brought into sharp focus President Bush’s plans to end his term with a strong U.S. military presence in Iraq, and to leave tough decisions about ending the unpopular war to his successor.

The plans outlined by the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, would retain a large force in the country — perhaps more than 100,000 troops — when the time comes for Bush to move out of the White House in January 2009.

Via Kevin Drum.

The Surge: “Fantasy Island”

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A “knowledgeable Iraq observer” over at Laura Rozen’s place offers some commentary and analysis of the surge, including background on the dynamics in play between Iraq’s ethnic groups, the role of Al Queda in Iraq, and whether our additional troops has had any effect at all:

What about the former insurgents that are now cooperating with U.S. forces in Anbar, Diyala, Salah ad Din, etc.? Did they need American protection to flip? I doubt it. Let’s keep in mind, AQI is a vicious terrorist organization, but they are maybe 5% of the insurgency and are responsible for 10-15% of insurgent attacks ((see: The Myth of AQI)). So, for surgenistas to be right that the “former” insurgents that are now cooperating to go after AQI needed our protection, we would have to conclude that the other 95% of the insurgency (you know, the guys who have bogged down the most powerful army in the history of the world for four years) need the U.S. to protect them against the small minority of fanatics and foreigners that make up AQI. Does that seem likely? No. They are using U.S. forces and capitalizing on the fact that they are helping militants go after their enemies — and the fact that Americans are not targeting them in the interim.

The whole thing is a great take down of the coming report of progress in Iraq.