Uh, what day of the week was it when I predicted exactly this was going to happen? Was it Wednesday, maybe Thursday? Anybody who's watched this debacle unfold for three plus years had to know that in the end Bush would control whatever the Iraqi lapdogs would lay out as "their" plan. But the good thing is there now is a plan. That is good. And it's Bush's plan (first and only). And it is totally rigged for maximum political impact (duh). So, as Steve points out, it is now solely Bush's responsibility.....but hasn't it always been? I hear the sound of Halliburton bull-dozers reving up for constrution of the permanent bases. We are there folks, and only a massive rejection of the GOP at the polls, or a massive attack by superior numbers of Iraqis will stop us from staying there forever. I'd bet the latter before the former.
Posted by T2 at June 25, 2006 11:24 AMWhatever is good for the GOP will be the future path for Iraq.
Whatever is good for the GOP will most certainly be disastrous for Iraq.
Posted by tempus at June 25, 2006 03:31 PMIt was as late as Friday, T2, when several of us declared that the Iraq plan wouldn't be "demanding" any troops leaving, ever. But with Nero Jr, this was just shooting fish in a barrel: all politics, all the time; no policy, ever.
Now that al-Maliki has been forced publically to eat the Empire's shit sandwich, you can stick a fork in him and his government, they're done.
Iraqis will now likely see him as a hoppin' and a dancin' to von Rumsfeld and Dead-eye Dick's tune; so much for the "hopes" of the election of five months ago (not that the government has been in "power" for even a month, has it?). Oh well, they can always have another election, the more the merrier!
Troop levels can/will "fluctuate" as necessary over the short term to mislead/acclimate the American boobs, but ultimately this Permanent Oil Deployment will be accepted, just as the Cold War deployments were/are.
The storyline will be that since America went into Iraq and accidentally and/or incompetently created an open air latrine for 25 million people, we certainly have to stick around to keep addin' the quicklime, else it will become powerful stinky.
Anything else will be cuttin' and runnin', and dishonor our fallen troops, and we stand by the Iraqis in their democratic efforts to clean up the enormous latrine we created.
Maybe not in exactly these words, but you get the idea.
One final point: Maliki presented this plan to the Iraqi Parliament as an "executive perogative": the legislature aren't even going to get to vote on the country's national "reconcilation plan"! Democracy at its finest! Now where would Maliki get a little "democratic" idea like this from?
Posted by euzoius at June 25, 2006 07:35 PMTo my Leftwing allies.
As an Islamic person I thank you for your support of the Jihad in Iraq. Thanks to people like Keith Olbermann, you are demoralizing America! With this country losing it's will to fight Us Jihadis will prevail. After Iraq we will destroy the Zionists in Israel. Then the Left will be swept into power in America. Together Islam and the Left we will destroy the Capitalists-Christian Order!