Ever since TPMmuckraker first broke the story on "Iraq forever" declaration released by the Bush and al-Maliki administrations, some people have asked me to comment on the matter given my long-time focus on having no residual American military forces in Iraq. The Clinton, Dodd, Edwards and Obama campaigns all responded to the story, stating that they opposed permanent military bases in Iraq and, thus, also opposed the declaration set forth by the two administrations. I didn't say much, because I see the permanent bases issue as a subset of the no residual forces issue. If one doesn't have any residual American military forces in Iraq, then having permanent, American, military bases becomes impossible. The issues are intertwined, but the residual forces issue supercedes the permanent bases issue. In fact, I actually think that allowing candidates to state they will not have permanent bases elides the larger question of how many American troops they will keep in Iraq.
Rather than how the Democratic candidates responded to it, what concerns me far more about the declaration is how its residual force plan is strikingly similar to those laid out by Democratic candidates. From the relevant section of the declaration:
Security: To support the Iraqi government in training, equipping, and arming the Iraqi Security Forces so they can provide security and stability to all Iraqis; support the Iraqi government in contributing to the international fight against terrorism by confronting terrorists such as Al-Qaeda, its affiliates, other terrorist groups, as well as all other outlaw groups, such as criminal remnants of the former regime; and to provide security assurances to the Iraqi Government to deter any external aggression and to ensure the integrity of Iraq's territory.
The final clause describing border integrity basically means propping up the Iraqi government against a coup or rebellion. It also accomplishes one of the main Project for a New American Century goals for invading Iraq described in a September 2000 Bush campaign document: repositioning American forces in the Middle East to develop a forward position against Iran. From said document (PDF):
The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein. (p. 29)
From an American perspective, the value of such bases would endure even should Saddam pass from the scene. Over the long term, Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region. (p. 26)
Neo-cons have been publicly planning this before Bush even took office. Permanent bases in southern Iraq function to prop up a friendly Iraqi government, to reposition American forces in the Middle East outside of Saudi Arabia, to create a forward position against Iran, and widen the American sphere of influence over the oil fields both in southern Iraq and in Kuwait. That is really why we went to war, and it is clearly laid out in Bush campaign documents from 2000.
Other than that clause, however, what really worries me is that the other residual force goals expressed in the declaration are virtually the same as the residual force goals presented by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Note that I did not say they would require the same amount of troops, just simply that the goals of training Iraqi security forces and pursuing "terrorists" in the country are the same. While Samantha Power has indicated that Obama's residual force plan would "do counter-terrorism, as distinct from counter-insurgency," it has never been clear to me how "terrorists" will be defined as separate from militants who simply oppose the Iraqi government or who are engaging in further sectarian conflict. The long stated Iraqi troop training and counter-terrorism goals from the Obama and Clinton campaigns are simply not clearly distinct from those goals as expressed in the join Bush - al-Maliki declaration.
This worries me on two levels. First, it worries me that American troops will stay in Iraq indefinitely, under both a Republican and Democratic administration. Second, it worries me that the residual force plans expressed by Clinton and Obama will not be clearly distinct from those presented by the Republican nominee in 2008. If they are both talking about training Iraqi forces and conducting counter-terrorism, whatever actual differences there might be become extremely academic and blurred from public view. It would constitute Strategic Drift on both grounds, allowing both the galactic error that is American military involvement in Iraq to continue, and would also deny Democrats their current electoral edge.
So yes, it is nice that Clinton, Dodd, Edwards and Obama all came out against permanent bases, but doing so does not resolve the over-arching residual force issue. Even without permanent bases, we could still face significant American military involvement in Iraq, and we still face the Iraq blurring strategy. While it is a step in the right direction, declaring opposition to permanent American military bases in Iraq does not resolve either of those extremely important issues.
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