Christina Siun O’Connell of Firedoglake and Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller of Open Left did a commercial for Gov. Bill Richardson.
The message is clear. Bill Richardson is the only major candidate (Kucinich and Gravel are not major) who has a plan that leaves no residual troops in Iraq. If you leave residual troops in Iraq, Christina says, you are not ending the war.
I’ve talked to Bowers about this before. For Bowers, this talk about no residual troops is terribly important. And I understand why. If a candidate plans to leave 30,000-60,000 troops in country they have no business saying that they are going to end the war. Bowers has been trying to get the candidates to be more specific about their plans, and how many troops it will take over how many years for them to implement their plans. I applaud his efforts. And I applaud their decision to reward Richardson for being specific and boldly saying that he will end the war.
Yet, I’m not sure that the standard of no residual troops is the right standard. Maybe that is not the most important question that we should be asking. Iraq is a mess. It’s very complicated. It not only impacts on the ability of the world economy to fuel itself, it also brings extremely delicate questions about our relationships with Turkey (and the Kurds), Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Emirates.
Our allies, all of whom are Sunni, are appalled at the humanitarian crisis and ethnic cleansing of their brethren in Iraq. They are suffering from a refugee crisis. The U.S. and our European allies are struggling to influence the Iranian government. There are even powerful Israeli interests involved.
I remember when I took my first class on the Middle East. It was my junior year in high school. And I found it to be a dizzying experience trying to keep all the different parties straight in my head. After a while, I just wanted to throw up my hands and say, ‘I’ll never be able to learn all this stuff.’ But I stuck it out and I learned it. And I feel like insisting on no residual forces is somewhat akin to throwing up our hands and saying it is too complicated…we quit.
In this case, it may well be that the problems are too complicated, our resources too tapped, our credibility too shot, and our leadership too delusional…and that the best answer is for us to throw up our hands and quit. I believe that is probably the case. I certainly believe that we should end the occupation and all efforts at reconstruction, and take our troops home.
And I don’t trust any politician that is saying one thing out of one side of their mouth and another thing out of the other side of their mouth.
But I don’t need a promise of no residual troops. If we need troops to keep the peace between Turkey and the Kurds, I’m willing to consider that. If we have some Iraqi government approved missions…especially related to refugees…I’m willing to listen.
Above all, I want a president that understands two things. I want them to understand who all the factions are and what motivates them. And I want them to acknowledge that the war is lost and begin thinking about the big issues that brought us this war: dependence on oil and gas from the region, blind support for a deteriorating status quo on the Israeli/Palestine question, a determination to have a forward basing strategy in the Arab world, and a double standard on human rights in the Arab world. If they do not understand these issues, I am not going to be all the impressed by calls for no residual forces.
I think Al Gore understands. I think Barack Obama understands. I think, perhaps, John Edwards understands. Bill Richardson? I am not so sure.
Add to this that Bill Richardson has some serious shortcomings on domestic policy, and I would prefer it if people didn’t automatically leap to give him their support.
I applaud his strong position. I applaud Matt, Chris, and Christina’s support for his position. But it just doesn’t mean all that much to me. I don’t necessarily think making such a promise is an indicator of competence.
I applaud their efforts too, but “no residual forces” does sound like it came out of some committee.
I wonder why they didn’t use, “no permanent bases”, which would explicitly mention the meat of the matter? But that would directly challenge America’s mode of empire. I guess they didn’t want to go that far.
I think they should. Until the permanent bases get discussed, it’s only going to get worse. Kerry brought up the issue of permanent bases in Iraq in one of his debates with Bush, which was one the most positively surprising things he did during his whole campaign, IMO.
You communicate with these people privately, don’t you? Did they explain to you why they didn’t say “no permanent bases”?
I think you have it backwards. No troops means no bases. No bases does not mean no troops.
Yes, but the whole point of your diary was that “no residual troops” is a bad slogan because we might need to keep some troops there for a while, for instance “to keep the peace between Turkey and the Kurds”.
I didn’t say “no bases”. I said “no permanent bases”. If we have troops there but no permanent bases, than the Iraqis would be less likely to get the impression that the troops are there permanently.
Making an ad of this type for Richardson is a good idea. Neither of us likes “no residual forces”. I proposed “no permanent bases”, an issue Kerry has raised. Do you have a formulation that is better than either of these two?
No, no, no.
I have no problem with ‘no residual forces’ as a slogan. I’m not talking about messaging or framing here at all.
I’m talking about whether it is critical that a candidate take a kind of ‘no residual forces’ pledge.
I don’t think the important thing is that we have zero troops in Iraq. I think the important thing is that we give up on thinking that we can get a stable friendly government there by tinkering with strategy and troop deployments. We need to get out.
But we don’t have to get out down to the last man. I have no problem with that if that is what seems best. But the real issue is that we understand the region, why we got in there, why we failed, and how we can lesson the risk of future fiascos while also lessening the damage from this one.
I want to see some sophistication, humility, and willingness to change direction on our broader energy/foreign policy. That’s more important than whether we have some troops in Iraq.
the real issue is that we understand the region, why we got in there, why we failed, and how we can lesson the risk of future fiascos while also lessening the damage from this one.
That’s quite a set of goals. I would say that understanding these things involves realizing that America has turned into an empire, and that both major parties are invested in it.
My impression is that since January, the Dems have behaved in such a way as to provoke a learning process in the netroots to gradually come to that realization.
But that is not going to help us in the short-term, i.e., up through the 2008 election. Both parties think they can still keep this empire thing going (getting out of Iraq would involve conceding that planning the future of America around its being an empire didn’t work), both externally (staying in Iraq) and internally (keeping true withdrawal from Iraq and demilitarization of the US from being even treated as serious possibilities inside Washington). The netroots won’t be able to stop this. Something will have to break for it to stop. But in the meantime, the netroots can learn, and the Dems have been providing them with plenty of lessons.
While I understand that Bowers and Stoller state that their appearance in the ad should not constitute an endorsement, it skirts a mighty fine line. And frankly, although Richardson says that about Iraq – he’s excellent on foreign policy issues, for the most part – I think he has far too many shortcomings when it comes to domestic policy, along with his Biden-like ability to say stupid shit – to be a good nominee.
And frankly, if the Democratic nominee (and future president) does not draw down almost all, if not all, of our troops from Iraq, they will lose in 2012. So I think there will be plenty of pressure from activists like us to make sure the troops are pulled out to the extent that Richardson advocates (well, except for Clinton, perhaps).
Clinton’s in it to win it.
I find your stance quite surprising. I understand the concept of not considering “the no residual troops” a line in the sand that we should use to choose a President, considering his/her concerns are not only those with regard to Iraq.
The notion, however, of keeping 30,000-60,000 troops there to “police” the area is a ludicrous idea, and of a piece with the stupidity that got us into this mess in the first place.
First of all, that size of a contingent is merely going to be cannon fodder for anything that happens there. Secondly, and most important, we are obviously not the people, because of arrogance, incompetence, and an immense lack of credibility, to be policing anything in that area, under any administration.
Isn’t that abundantly clear?
yeah, that is abundantly clear.
But it’s not abundantly clear that we should pull up stakes so completely that we invite even more chaos.
Just using one hypothetical, we might find it useful to negotiate some role for our armed forces in:
As for 3), I am inclined to declare it dead. But the first two are not unreasonable. They are both related to some of the moral obligations we have incurred, and they should not be completely off the table.
U.S. forces might be needed to maintain ‘peace/stability’ between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds. Is that what you’re suggesting? Imagine, the U.S. opposing the will of a fellow NATO member and one of its still most cooperative allies. Everyone underestimates the Turks when it comes to the possibility of an independent Iraq Kurdistan or continued Kurdish resistance from Iraq. They would probably first leave NATO, put the EU application on hold and even go to war with the U.S. No. Turkey would never put up with such an arrangement. And if the U.S. has shown itself hardly effective against the Iraqis, wait until they begin messing around with the Turks. The only business the U.S. has in the region is the the oil business.
And Iran has closed its borders to Kurdistan. Little Kurdistan has no friends, and allies on all sides of it would like nothing better than another anhilation of Kurdish nationalism.
And while it’s nice to parse out slogans of Democrats who won’t win the nomination, the bottom line is that the Oil Party has dictated a permanent presence of the U.S. in Iraq. They own it now. They aren’t giving it up over a silly little thing like popular will.
The underlying assumption of leaving residual forces is that we must be prepared at some future date to guard our interests in oil wealth in the region. If you move the entire country on energy (as Brazil has) you come up with a totally different model for the future. So talking about “residual forces” is a code language for talking about “residual interests.”
Of course, it’s also a code language for the protection of Israel. But residual ground forces do not have to symbolize our commitment there, and that’s only code language to those right-wingers who believe that risking our kids on the ground is a sign of that commitment.
Restoring our prestige in the world is the best way to protect Israel, and to protect our future. Richardson can only take this position while simultaneously taking an aggressive energy independence position–which he has.
Your way of thinking is what I’m pushing back on here a little.
I agree with most of your points, and I think that I wasn’t clear that I was trying to speak from their perspective, not my own.
I also agree that Richardson is being disingenuous. If we have an embassy, we have troops. Since we’ve given up our base in Saudi Arabia, the chance that we will not even maintain a base is slim…unless we are firmly kicked out. (I think that when Biden talks about federalism, he has that information in the back of his head. Our base may very well be in Kurdish territory.)