It’s interesting to see the Bushies try to take a victory lap with the announcement that 100,000 combat troops will be removed from Iraq by the end of the month, leaving only 50,000 troops in support and security roles. First and foremost, Obama has overseen a remarkable logistical accomplishment. It isn’t easy to move this many troops and this much equipment without much incident in such a short period of time. And liberals have been mostly mute on drawdown of troops because we still have 50,000 troops in country. The goal should be to have no troops in Iraq other than those needed to protect State Department staff.
What’s irritating about the Bushies’ triumphalism isn’t just that they wasted so much money and got so many people injured and killed. The problem is that Iraq is still wracked by absurd violence and politically paralyzed. They still haven’t formed a government and it looks like Moqtada al-Sadr is going to wind up being a kingmaker there. The invasion of Iraq has empowered Iran, which has in turn radicalized Israel’s far right, which has in turn made it almost impossible to revitalize the peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Bush’s foreign policies strengthened the revolutionary Islamic regime in Teheran, bolstered the power of Hamas, gave new strength to Hizbollah, and created a permanent far right government in Israel. It is now more likely that we will see either a nuclear arms race in the Middle East or a preemptive war to try to prevent one. And then there is the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan which is immeasurably worse than before the invasion of Iraq.
I’m glad we’re pulling our combat troops out of Iraq and Obama has overseen a smooth process while keeping his campaign promise. But the region is badly screwed up and we have very little to feel optimistic about. Listening to Bushies celebrate and pat themselves on the back makes me angry…a little bit.
