Black Box Report

From the Dept. of Horrible Political Analogies:

President Bush envisions a long-term U.S. troop presence in Iraq similar to the one in South Korea where American forces have helped keep an uneasy peace for more than 50 years, the White House said Wednesday.

The problem with having someone as...incurious as our current president setting foreign policy is that, from a historical perspective, their policy positions don't make a lick of sense. Over at Informed Comment, Middle East scholar Juan Cole gives Bush's historical analogy an F:

Who is playing the role of the Communists and of North Vietnam? Is it the Sunni Arabs of Iraq? But they are divided into Iraqi/Arab nationalists and Salafi Sunni revivalists. (The secular Arab nationalists are the vast majority according to recent polling). So they are not a united force. They are fighting with one another in al-Anbar. And, the Arab nationalists and the religious Sunnis cannot both play the role of the Communists. Some Arab nationalists are allied with the United States (Egypt, Tunisia, etc.) Others are not (Syria). Some religious Sunnis are allied with the US (Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan). Others are not. So where is the analogy to International Communism? Who is China and who is the Soviet Union? Is it Syria and Iran? But both are ruled by Shiites, not Sunnis!

But let us say that the Sunni Arabs are North Korea. Who is South Korea? Is it the Shiites of Iraq? But they are allied with Iran (isn't it playing the role of China?) And the vast majority of them don't want US troops in Iraq according to polls. There is zero chance that the Shiites of Iraq will put up with a long term presence of US bases in their areas of Iraq.

The comparison belies a fundamental lack of understanding of the US mission in South Korea, not to mention ignoring all the stated reasons for the mission in Iraq. If nothing else, our continued presence in South Korea makes things better, not worse:

American troops haven't faced constant fire from insurgents in Korea, and the Koreans have asked us to stay there. Not to mention that there's no thousand year religious conflict that shows no signs of calming down, in Korea...Poll after poll shows we are not welcome by the majority of Iraqi civilians, and saying that we're going to stay for fifty years -- whether they like it or not -- just serves to create enemies at a faster clip.

Needlenose refers to this as the "iron butt" strategy:

Just as various Iraqi factions are trying to wait us out and grab for power as we leave, Dick Cheney and his ilk think we can wait them out (even though they live there!) as long as the American public can be numbed to the ongoing death toll.

Given that all of the various rationales for going into Iraq to begin with - al Qaeda links, WMD, removing Hussein - have eventually all fallen by the wayside, one can only conclude that this is, indeed always has been, the administration's goal. The neocon dream of controlling the Middle East and never leaving. Ever:

When the public rationales evaporate…the White House will find some other justification for staying, no matter how weak. Because staying is itself the objective…The creation and maintenance of a long-term military presence is the only policy objective that...makes sense of everything Bush has done. If any other goal is posited, his policies and actions are incoherent; but if this goal is posited, they all make sense.

It seems only yesterday we were hearing the conflict in Iraq would take “six days…six weeks…I doubt six months.” Now we’re talking about 50 years. Despite the ridiculous analogy to the mission in South Korea, I'm going to chalk this up to one of those rare occasions of White House honesty. A permanent presence among people who don't want us there - it's not a bug, it's a feature.