Bush to bring 30,000 troops home by summer 2008

[Glenn]

-- President Bush will announce this week plans to cut U.S. troops in Iraq by about 30,000 -- to pre-'surge' levels -- by next summer, a senior administration official confirms to CNN.

[Big Swami]

It'll just be a draw-down. He won't actually pull out of Iraq for the rest of his presidency. He's going to wait for the inevitable Democratic president to do that, and then Fox News will have so much "cut-and-run Democrat party" ammo that they'll piss themselves with glee.

[Tahoe]

Well it would be a cut and run, wouldn't it? Serious question there.

Just wondering where you stand on all that, Swami. Pull out just as soon as you can get everyone on planes? Its hard to figure from here but now that we are there, I'm not sure we can just pull out.

[b-diddy]

if troop reduction returns us to pre-surge conditions in iraq then bush is giving every reason to give up in iraq. however, if things cool off in iraq then we atleast have a light at the end and a reason to help out a little longer. i would hope that im wrong and its the latter, but im pretty sure it'll be the former.

[Big Swami]

Actually, I'm in favor of leaving Iraq yesterday. Iraq is in full-fledged civil war the second we leave, no matter when we leave. Shi'a, Kurds and Sunni Muslims have been at each other's throats in Mesopotamia for centuries, they held off the entire time they were under the iron fist of Saddam Hussein. They know how to bide their time.

American involvement in Iraq is going to provide two things: first, money and weapons to whichever faction happens to tell us what we want to hear (hell, we had our support 100% behind Ahmed Chalabi at one point. That would have been disastrous had the press not investigated him). The other thing is Iranian influence. The longer we stay, the more influence Iran has over the population of Iraq.

Think about this: imagine Mexico is run by a totalitarian government, and this government has made obnoxious threats against China. China, thinking it's defending itself, invades Mexico and stays there for a long time trying to get a government in place that will be exactly what China wants them to be. But things aren't going well - the Mexicans hate their new Chinese overlords and are blowing shit up and starting up firefights constantly, and the whole situation is touch-and-go.

Does the US just sit on its hands, waiting patiently for China and Mexico to sort things out? No. The US is going to take any measures it can if one of its neighbors, with whom it shares an enormous border, is increasingly unstable. We already know that China and the US have had disagreements. The US is damn sure going to be figuring out who it likes best inside Mexico and sending them lawyers, guns, and money, and planning for them to come out on top.

That's what Iran is doing right now. Iran is pretty powerful in the greater Middle East. It's got a pretty modern infrastructure and a fair amount of money. It's not fair to expect them to sit around doing nothing while Iraq, which they've been at war with in the past, destabilizes. It's just going to get worse.

The way I see it, if the results are the same no matter when you pull out, pull out now.

[Glenn]

Not to sound like a broken record, but damn, Swami is good.

Cogentulations on a great post.

[Zip Goshboots]

Not to sound like a broken record, but damn, Swami is good.

Cogentulations on a great post.

Swami is always right on. I'm guessing the "China in Mexico" argument is a little too cogent for the right wing, though.
I've always wondered about the people who would call an Iraq withdrawal "cut and run". Fuckin' A, we started this mess for no reason, we had no justification to go in there in the first place!
Of course you could classify it as cut and run, even if we do it fifty years from now, when the political climate there will be the same as it is now!!!

[Big Swami]

Let's not even begin to discuss the paper bag of shit we've lit on fire with the Kurds. We've given them tons of money and support. If you go into the Kurdish part of Iraq, you wouldn't even realize there was a war going on, they've got it so good right now. Things are stable there. Life is good if you're a Kurd in northern Iraq. But guess what? Kurds don't just live in Iraq. The Kurds have had a great long history of terrorist attacks against Turkey, Armenia, Syria, and Iran, fighting for what they see as the right to establish their own Kurdish homeland in the Middle East. The more aid we give to the Kurds, the more we piss off the Turks, Armenians, Syrians, and Iranians, and let's face it, we need all the friends we can get in the Middle East right now.

There's talk now that when the US finally withdraws from Iraq, no matter when, the Kurds may declare independence and secede from Iraq, and if they do that, the Turkish army will definitely invade them, setting the stage for yet another retarded Middle Eastern terrorist war.

[Tahoe]

Yea, I disagree.

[Uncle Mxy]

What are we accomplishing by our military being there, Tahoe? I haven't heard many cogent reason to do so.

So big oil holds us over more of a barrel?
So bad people can target us instead of each other?

Is it worth the cost?

AFAICT, things are going to turn shittier and shittier in Iraq no matter what. Our lack of plan after ousting Saddam guaranteed that. Hell, our presence attracted Al Qaeda elements to Iraq when they were not there before. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't, and "damned if we do" costs us a lot and hasn't gotten us much of anywhere.