The Guardian reports that the British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, anticipates having British troops in Basra until “2006/2007.”
The Coalition’s occupation of Basra has thus far been a relative success. The British, who have 10,000 troops in Basra, suffered their last KIA in late August; the region is relatively untouched by the insurgency; and there are hopes among Iraqis that Basra will soon return to being Iraq’s Riviera. There are difficulties, certainly, and criticisms by the Shia majority, but, all in all, Basra is doing about as well as one could expect.
What does this mean? Well, if the British anticipate being in relatively-peaceful Basra for the next 2-3 years, it’s logical to assume that the Americans should* be in Iraq for at least that long — if not longer. Beware of Presidential candidates who won’t expressly concede as much, or who claim otherwise.
*Revised from “will,” because I realized that there is the WE MUST PULL OUT NOW, REGARDLESS OF CONSEQUENCES school of thought (let’s call it “Kucinichism”).
If we don’t stay there for a few years more – well, we ought to.
Wonder what the philosophy is for Afghanistan; or even if we’re considered to ‘be’ there any more in any capacity other than hunting down OBL.
” (let’s call it “Kucinichism”).”
If Kucinich is your justification from the ‘will’ to ‘should’ switch, move right on back. For all the piping from Republicans about how the ‘liberal wing’ is ‘taking over’ the Democratic party, Kucinich is getting what he deserves electorally.
However, you’d have a good point if you called it ‘Bush electoral expediency’ as he seems hellbent on overrapid transfer of everything.
If Kucinich is your justification from the ‘will’ to ‘should’ switch, move right on back.
I’m not using Kucinich to tar the entire Democratic field, Sidereal. (Indeed, I’ve come out in favor of Clark, Kerry, or Lieberman over Bush.*) But Kucinich is the only prominent political figure who’s advocating withdrawal, and so his name gets used.
von
*Though not Dean, whom I distrust.
Oh, I’m not being defensive. I’m just saying that since Kucinich is, as you say, the only prominent figure (other than Bush) making those noises and since he has 0 chance of gaining executive power, it’s still logical to assume ‘will’ (again, going only by the Democrat contendors) rather than ‘should’.
Beware of Presidential candidates who won’t expressly concede as much, or who claim otherwise.
What about Presidents who do so? The current noises the Bush Administration is making seem to be geared towards a complete handover to Iraq and withdrawal of American troops by election time.
I’m with Dean when he says:
My position is it’s not responsible to pull our troops out. I was against going in, but now — what happened was the president let us believe that Al Qaida was in Iraq. It turned out there was no evidence for that. But there is pretty good evidence that they are there now.
If we pull out our troops precipitously and Al Qaida gets the kind of foothold in Iraq that it did in Afghanistan, we have a major national security problem on our hands.