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Barack Obama and My Iraq Fantasy
by Meteor Blades [Subscribe]
Tue Sep 11, 2007 at 05:16:52 PM PDT
In a major speech scheduled for Clinton, Iowa, tomorrow, Senator Barack Obama plans to make new proposals for pushing diplomacy in the Middle East, getting out of Iraq, and doing something about the worsening humanitarian mess there. Among those who pay attention to election campaigns at so early a date, friends and foes and curious uncommitteds alike seem eager to hear what the Senator has to say coming on the heels of the testimony of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker.
It was on a Wednesday exactly five years ago that, in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly, Mister Bush began the final phase of framing the case for what would become the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Five years! In fact, as we learned for certain when former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill spilled the beans in Ron Suskind’s The Price of Loyalty, the first step in the administration’s planning for that coming war had begun 18 months earlier in the first national security meeting after the January Inaugural. Planning stepped up on September 12, 2001. In the later assessment of Colin Powell’s right-hand man Larry Wilkerson, a "cabal" moved behind the scenes to ensure that nothing stood in the way of taking America into Iraq at the tip of a bayonet labeled "9/11."
Before that Christmas, while the Cheney-Bush Administration was losing Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora, it began softening up the American public for an invasion of Iraq with the help of enablers like Brookings Institution scholars Philip Gordon and Michael E. O’Hanlon. These two promoted the shaping of a new "Bush Doctrine" in their December 2001 piece, Should the War on Terrorism Target Iraq?
All the rest of that winter, and through the spring and summer of 2002, the drumbeat for war sounded louder and louder, while in Britain, on July 23, the head of MI6, Richard Dearlove, was writing in the Downing Street Memo: "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
On September 20, the Bush Doctrine rejecting containment and propounding pre-emption was formalized in the National Security Strategy of the United States. This was followed by an intense public and behind-the-scenes effort to get Congress to pass the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq resolution, part of which was a lie-filled speech in Cincinnati on October 7, which included the sentence: "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
The House passed the AUMF on October 10, with 61% of Democrats and 3% of Republicans opposed, and the Senate on October 11, with 42% of Democrats and 2% of Republicans opposed. From that moment forward, whatever those who voted for the resolution thought they had done, they had actually made invasion inevitable.
A bit more than a week before the vote, a little-known Illinois state senator from Chicago’s south side made a speech in opposition to a "dumb" war, a "rash" war. Making clear he was not "antiwar" in the sense of being against all wars, Barack Obama declared, to his everlasting credit:
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda.
Too bad he couldn't have made that speech in the U.S. Senate nine days later. It would have made a nice bookend to the speech in the House by Congressman Pete Stark, who said, after remarking that he didn’t trust Mister Bush or his advisers:
What is most unconscionable is that there is not a shred of evidence to justify the certain loss of life. Do the generalized threats and half-truths of this Administration give any one of us in Congress the confidence to tell a mother or father or family that the loss of their child or loved one was in the name of a just cause?
I know that Senator Obama as orator will shine tomorrow. He will no doubt move a step or two beyond where he has previously been on withdrawal. He might recommend an inclusive Middle East summit. And he will have at least a few words to say about relief for suffering Iraqis, such as the 2.5 million in exile. Words that will be especially welcome in the face of Mister Bush’s latest failure: Less than 2000 Iraqis of the paltry 7000 he promised to admit to the United States by the end of September will actually be here.
So why am I not excited?
Not because of personal animus against Senator Obama. Or that I’ve already picked another candidate.
Rather it's that, just once, I’d like to see the political paradigm flipped over. To return to the title, I’d like my Iraq fantasy fulfilled.
I know it’s late and the sun has long since set on the East Coast, but I’d like to see Senator Obama phone up all the other presidential candidates tonight and invite them to stand with him on the podium in Iowa and deliver a unified front on Iraq. United against the Cheney-Bush regime, united for a rapid, well-thought-out withdrawal that could have all but a handful of the troops out of Iraq by election day, 2008, and the remaining handful gone a year later. United behind a bill which supports the troops by fully funding that withdrawal. I’d like to see all the candidates accept Senator Obama’s invitation whatever that does to their schedules.
If only the candidates could swallow their personal egos, ignore the media spin, the partisan insults, the fevered shouts of the fear-mongering public intellectuals and militarists and say tomorrow, serially or in unison: "Enough already. From today forward, we will do all in our power – together - to get a well-planned withdrawal started immediately."
Quit rolling your eyes. I warned you from the get-go this was a fantasy. After five years of our disastrous inability to stop this war from starting and to keep it from never ending, surely you can forgive me a few minutes of if-only?
What plan might there be that those eight candidates could adopt by speech-time tomorrow? I concede that I am uncomfortable with chunks of the plan initially put forth by liberal hawks Brian Katulis and Larry Korb for the Center for American Progress in September 2005, and updated in May 2006 and June 2007. It’s the blurry, unrefined aspect of their proposal to redeploy some troops to neighboring countries that disturbs me most. How many? What for? How long? But, first things first. Which means getting out of Iraq.
If adopted, the latest 60-page CAP proposal, Strategic Reset, would have all the troops out of Iraq in 12 months except for 8-10,000 remaining in Kurdistan for one more year as a buffer against any Kurdish clashes with the Turks. U.S. military bases in Iraq would be closed by the end of 2008, the gigantic embassy downsized. The U.S. would open its doors to 100,000 Iraqis annually. Diplomatic intensity in the Middle East would rise. A new effort would be made to resolve the decades-old Palestinian-Israeli crisis.
The redeployment part of the CAP proposal is front-loaded. In the first six months, 100,000 of the 172,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq would be out – a withdrawal rate of nearly 17,000 a month. The remainder, except for the force in Kurdistan, would be out by November 1.
This would be accomplished by not replacing units that complete their tours on a one-for-one basis. Redeploying in one year would allow sufficient time to dismantle U.S. bases such as Camp Victory in Baghdad and Balad and Tallil Airbases, as well as to return most U.S. military equipment to the United States.
Not perfect. Again, where will all those troops go exactly? A better fantasy would be to pack up all the equipment, order everybody in uniform to stand still for 10 seconds, and beam the entire kit and caboodle out of Iraq by Friday. The best fantasy of all would be the one where we climb into our time machine, toss in a couple of boxes full of documents from the past five years, shift into reverse and slide copies under the doors of every Senator and Representative on September 12, 2001. But I digress from my real fantasy.
Senator Obama obviously isn’t going to issue any invitations. And even if he did, nobody would accept. And even if they did, they’d never be able to agree on a single plan, CAP’s or anybody’s. And even if they could, they’d never get enough fellow Democrats in the Senate and House to go along. And even if they did and the whole Congress sent up a bill whose sole purpose was to fully fund the withdrawal with a date certain for completion, Mister Bush would veto it. And they could never get enough Republican votes to override that veto. Or enough Democratic votes to say before and after the veto: That’s the only funding bill you’re getting, Mister Bush.
Which is too bad. Because whatever Senator Obama says tomorrow, and I have no doubt he will be clarion, and whatever other presidential candidates and congressional leaders say in response, if he and they aren’t willing to add a hard-nosed strategy to their words, then it’s all just theater. The Cheney-Bush regime will have its way and there will still be more than 100,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq come January 2009. With 5000 dead Americans and tens of thousands more dead Iraqis, and an ongoing occupation that operates as the biggest recruiting poster for people who would, if they could, produce dozens of September 11ths.
Thus does fantasy turn to nightmare.
by Meteor Blades [Subscribe]
Tue Sep 11, 2007 at 05:16:52 PM PDT
In a major speech scheduled for Clinton, Iowa, tomorrow, Senator Barack Obama plans to make new proposals for pushing diplomacy in the Middle East, getting out of Iraq, and doing something about the worsening humanitarian mess there. Among those who pay attention to election campaigns at so early a date, friends and foes and curious uncommitteds alike seem eager to hear what the Senator has to say coming on the heels of the testimony of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker.
It was on a Wednesday exactly five years ago that, in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly, Mister Bush began the final phase of framing the case for what would become the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Five years! In fact, as we learned for certain when former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill spilled the beans in Ron Suskind’s The Price of Loyalty, the first step in the administration’s planning for that coming war had begun 18 months earlier in the first national security meeting after the January Inaugural. Planning stepped up on September 12, 2001. In the later assessment of Colin Powell’s right-hand man Larry Wilkerson, a "cabal" moved behind the scenes to ensure that nothing stood in the way of taking America into Iraq at the tip of a bayonet labeled "9/11."
Before that Christmas, while the Cheney-Bush Administration was losing Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora, it began softening up the American public for an invasion of Iraq with the help of enablers like Brookings Institution scholars Philip Gordon and Michael E. O’Hanlon. These two promoted the shaping of a new "Bush Doctrine" in their December 2001 piece, Should the War on Terrorism Target Iraq?
All the rest of that winter, and through the spring and summer of 2002, the drumbeat for war sounded louder and louder, while in Britain, on July 23, the head of MI6, Richard Dearlove, was writing in the Downing Street Memo: "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
On September 20, the Bush Doctrine rejecting containment and propounding pre-emption was formalized in the National Security Strategy of the United States. This was followed by an intense public and behind-the-scenes effort to get Congress to pass the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq resolution, part of which was a lie-filled speech in Cincinnati on October 7, which included the sentence: "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
The House passed the AUMF on October 10, with 61% of Democrats and 3% of Republicans opposed, and the Senate on October 11, with 42% of Democrats and 2% of Republicans opposed. From that moment forward, whatever those who voted for the resolution thought they had done, they had actually made invasion inevitable.
A bit more than a week before the vote, a little-known Illinois state senator from Chicago’s south side made a speech in opposition to a "dumb" war, a "rash" war. Making clear he was not "antiwar" in the sense of being against all wars, Barack Obama declared, to his everlasting credit:
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda.
Too bad he couldn't have made that speech in the U.S. Senate nine days later. It would have made a nice bookend to the speech in the House by Congressman Pete Stark, who said, after remarking that he didn’t trust Mister Bush or his advisers:
What is most unconscionable is that there is not a shred of evidence to justify the certain loss of life. Do the generalized threats and half-truths of this Administration give any one of us in Congress the confidence to tell a mother or father or family that the loss of their child or loved one was in the name of a just cause?
I know that Senator Obama as orator will shine tomorrow. He will no doubt move a step or two beyond where he has previously been on withdrawal. He might recommend an inclusive Middle East summit. And he will have at least a few words to say about relief for suffering Iraqis, such as the 2.5 million in exile. Words that will be especially welcome in the face of Mister Bush’s latest failure: Less than 2000 Iraqis of the paltry 7000 he promised to admit to the United States by the end of September will actually be here.
So why am I not excited?
Not because of personal animus against Senator Obama. Or that I’ve already picked another candidate.
Rather it's that, just once, I’d like to see the political paradigm flipped over. To return to the title, I’d like my Iraq fantasy fulfilled.
I know it’s late and the sun has long since set on the East Coast, but I’d like to see Senator Obama phone up all the other presidential candidates tonight and invite them to stand with him on the podium in Iowa and deliver a unified front on Iraq. United against the Cheney-Bush regime, united for a rapid, well-thought-out withdrawal that could have all but a handful of the troops out of Iraq by election day, 2008, and the remaining handful gone a year later. United behind a bill which supports the troops by fully funding that withdrawal. I’d like to see all the candidates accept Senator Obama’s invitation whatever that does to their schedules.
If only the candidates could swallow their personal egos, ignore the media spin, the partisan insults, the fevered shouts of the fear-mongering public intellectuals and militarists and say tomorrow, serially or in unison: "Enough already. From today forward, we will do all in our power – together - to get a well-planned withdrawal started immediately."
Quit rolling your eyes. I warned you from the get-go this was a fantasy. After five years of our disastrous inability to stop this war from starting and to keep it from never ending, surely you can forgive me a few minutes of if-only?
What plan might there be that those eight candidates could adopt by speech-time tomorrow? I concede that I am uncomfortable with chunks of the plan initially put forth by liberal hawks Brian Katulis and Larry Korb for the Center for American Progress in September 2005, and updated in May 2006 and June 2007. It’s the blurry, unrefined aspect of their proposal to redeploy some troops to neighboring countries that disturbs me most. How many? What for? How long? But, first things first. Which means getting out of Iraq.
If adopted, the latest 60-page CAP proposal, Strategic Reset, would have all the troops out of Iraq in 12 months except for 8-10,000 remaining in Kurdistan for one more year as a buffer against any Kurdish clashes with the Turks. U.S. military bases in Iraq would be closed by the end of 2008, the gigantic embassy downsized. The U.S. would open its doors to 100,000 Iraqis annually. Diplomatic intensity in the Middle East would rise. A new effort would be made to resolve the decades-old Palestinian-Israeli crisis.
The redeployment part of the CAP proposal is front-loaded. In the first six months, 100,000 of the 172,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq would be out – a withdrawal rate of nearly 17,000 a month. The remainder, except for the force in Kurdistan, would be out by November 1.
This would be accomplished by not replacing units that complete their tours on a one-for-one basis. Redeploying in one year would allow sufficient time to dismantle U.S. bases such as Camp Victory in Baghdad and Balad and Tallil Airbases, as well as to return most U.S. military equipment to the United States.
Not perfect. Again, where will all those troops go exactly? A better fantasy would be to pack up all the equipment, order everybody in uniform to stand still for 10 seconds, and beam the entire kit and caboodle out of Iraq by Friday. The best fantasy of all would be the one where we climb into our time machine, toss in a couple of boxes full of documents from the past five years, shift into reverse and slide copies under the doors of every Senator and Representative on September 12, 2001. But I digress from my real fantasy.
Senator Obama obviously isn’t going to issue any invitations. And even if he did, nobody would accept. And even if they did, they’d never be able to agree on a single plan, CAP’s or anybody’s. And even if they could, they’d never get enough fellow Democrats in the Senate and House to go along. And even if they did and the whole Congress sent up a bill whose sole purpose was to fully fund the withdrawal with a date certain for completion, Mister Bush would veto it. And they could never get enough Republican votes to override that veto. Or enough Democratic votes to say before and after the veto: That’s the only funding bill you’re getting, Mister Bush.
Which is too bad. Because whatever Senator Obama says tomorrow, and I have no doubt he will be clarion, and whatever other presidential candidates and congressional leaders say in response, if he and they aren’t willing to add a hard-nosed strategy to their words, then it’s all just theater. The Cheney-Bush regime will have its way and there will still be more than 100,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq come January 2009. With 5000 dead Americans and tens of thousands more dead Iraqis, and an ongoing occupation that operates as the biggest recruiting poster for people who would, if they could, produce dozens of September 11ths.
Thus does fantasy turn to nightmare.