Top Ten Reasons why we must leave Iraq, completely by Juan Cole
HHW
Friday, December 19, 2008
Top 10 Reasons Obama Should Resist Military Plans for American Bases
in Iraq
I present below the top 10 reasons for which President-Elect Obama
should stick to his guns and withdraw US troops from Iraq despite any
resistance he may get from the US officer corps and Secretary of
Defense Robert Gates.
In fact, it was little noted in the US press that Gen. Ray Odierno, US
commander in Iraq, said at Balad on Sunday, "I expect us, frankly,
right now, to be out with our military forces by 2011." So what I am
saying does not necessarily run counter to the views of the concerned
commanders.
Nevertheless, Odierno's comment contradicted the impression he and his
colleagues went on to give the rest of this week. Gareth Porter
reviews the evidence that the US military command is trying to get
around the provisions of the Status of Forces Agreement that Iraq has
concluded with the United States.
The agreement, for instance, calls for all US combat troops to be out
of Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009. But on Dec.12, Gen. Ray Odierno said
that thousands of US troops would remain in the cities. Apparently
combat troops doing joint operations with their Iraqi counterparts
will just be re-categorized as support troops.
MP Ahmad al-Masoudi, a leader of the Sadr Movement, which has 30 seats
in parliament, slammed Odierno's remarks. The Sadrists had been
opposed to the SOFA, considering it a Trojan Horse for the
legitimation of US troop presence in Iraq.
Porter also points to George Will's report of Gates's views on a long-
term US troop presence in Iraq:
' He [Gates] stresses, however, that there is bipartisan congressional
support for "a long-term residual presence" of perhaps 40,000 U.S.
troops in Iraq, and that the president-elect's recent statements have
not precluded that. Such a presence "for decades" has, he says,
followed major U.S. military operations since 1945, other than in
Vietnam. And he says, "Look at how long Britain has had troops in
Cyprus." '
Suspicions of US military resistance to both Obama's and Iraqi Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki's plans for US troops to withdraw from Iraq
were fueled by an NYT report on the withdrawal plan presented by
Generals David Petraeus and Ray Odierno to Obama that envisioned
combat troops remaining after May, 2010, Obama's own deadline. Still,
to be fair, not getting out by May 2010 is not the same as not getting
out by December 2011.
It should be noted that what seems to have provoked Odierno's own
attempt to keep US troops in Iraqi cities through 2009 is his concern
that they are needed to ensure that the referendum and 2 elections
scheduled for 2009 actually take place and are aboveboard. My guess is
that Odierno is afraid that if the US presence is too diminished by
December of 2009 when the federal parliamentary elections are
scheduled, Iran might well engage in massive vote-buying and install a
government hostile to US interests.
On the other hand, Odierno does not appear to share Gates's hopes that
40,000 troops could stay in Iraq in the medium to long term, given the
statement he made at Balad that I started with.
Here are the reasons for which a long-term US presence-- of the sort
Gates is said by Wills to have advocated-- is completely impractical.
1. The Status of Forces Agreement passed by the Iraqi parliament
explicitly calls for all US troops to be out of Iraq by the end of
2011. In fact, the Iraqi cabinet and parliament and notables such as
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani all wanted a shorter timetable than that.
This schedule is the maximum they will put up with.
2. The US military cannot stay in Iraq against the will of the elected
government. Those who doubt this principle should look at what
happened two decades ago in the Philippines. Or consider Uzbekistan's
withdrawal of permission for US to use its bases, in 2005. The
diplomatic cost of staying against a country's will is generally too
high for Washington to take that risk. Gates can wish for a change of
heart on the part of the Iraqi government, but it is highly unlikely
to happen.
3. The fatwas or formal legal rulings of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani
must be obeyed by all adult Shiites who follow him (the majority in
Iraq). He wants US troops out. He pressured al-Maliki to bargain hard
over the SOFA, and he was reportedly not happy with the infringement
on Iraqi sovereignty in the final version of the SOFA. One fatwa from
Sistani could put hundreds of thousands of angry Shiites in the
streets protesting any remaining US bases, and there would be no way
for the Iraqi government to resist such a demand that it ask the US to
leave.
4. The Sadr Movement would never accept a permanent US base in Iraq.
The British contingent in Basra took constant mortar and rocket fire
from the Mahdi Army, until ultimately the shellshocked Iraqi neighbors
of the base in downtown Basra sked the British to move out to the
airport. They did so, and went on taking mortar fire out there. They
are being withdrawn by June of 2009 by PM Gordon Brown.
5. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and its Badr Corps paramilitary
would never accept a long-term US presence, since they want to assert
control over Iraq themselves. It was touch and go whether they would
accept the SOFA, which gives the US military more prerogatives and
leaves them in the country longer than ISCI would like.
6. The Sunni Arab guerrillas will never accept a long-term US base.
They would also find ways of hitting it, and its very presence would
fuel and prolong the Sunni insurgency.
7. Iran would never put up with a long-term US base in Iraq, and would
certainly supply Iraqi guerrillas with the weapons needed to hound and
harass US troops.
8. Syria would not want a long-term US base, and the Syrian Baath has
enough assets in Iraq to ensure that US troops would be under constant
attack.
9. The international Salafi Jihadi movement (what the US tends to call
al-Qaeda, but the latter is only one part of this larger movement)
will be galvanized by any attempt of the US to stay in Iraq for the
long term militarily, and a US base in Iraq will produce constant
terrorism. The way the US came to Iraq, as an act of unprovoked
aggression, left the US presence without any legitimacy, and the
Salafi Jihadis will make use of that condition of Illegality to
challenge any base.
10. There is no safe place for an American base. A US base near
Baghdad would have to be supplied from Kuwait and southern Iraq, and
those supply lines could always be cut by angry Shiites and Iran. A US
base near Basra in the south would face the same constant attacks and
harassment that the British suffered. A US base in Kurdistan would
have to be supplied via Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. But Turkey is in
conflict with the Kurds, a conflict that could become hot and result
in supplies being cut off to the US base. The US military would be in
an impossible situation if Turkish-Kurdistan violence broke out, since
Turkey is a NATO ally but the Kurds are the only Iraqis that might
want a US presence. Moreover, US backing for Baghdad and Nuri al-
Maliki's assertion of authority over Kurdish populations outside
Kurdistan in Iraq proper have caused the Kurdistan leadership to
rethink whether they really want an interfering US military in their
area.
A long-term US base in Iraq is a crackpot Neoconservative fantasy that
is highly unlikely to be realized. Like all Neocon fantasies, even if
it could be realized, it would cause endless trouble and further wars.
President-elect Obama, keep your pledges and redeem the United States
by seeking friendship with Iraq rather than supremacy in Iraq.
posted by Juan Cole
Ariadne
last_per...@yahoo.com
> Old Juan Cole: A Very Sad Soul
>
> http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1759
Well known fascist ZioNazi site...has nothing
whatever to do with America's best interests.
Ariadne
Hahahahahaha!!!
Dhimmis all - Cole and following sheep.
And what an ignoramus you are to not
know that other countries' armed forces
serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.
last_per...@yahoo.com
ZioNazis are known for pointless "points."
Marcus Aurelius
a quote from George Washington, the First President of the USA and
Revolutionary War leader which supports your post.
• ". Nothing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate
antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for
others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and
amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The Nation, which
indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness,
is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its
affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its
duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another
disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of
slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when
accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent
collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests.
Real Patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favourite, are
liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp
the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their
interests. George Washington"
Ariadne
> Thank you for the original post with which I agree completely.
Talk about monkeys with keyboards!
From my dear friend Deborah a more specific
critique of dim dhimmi Juan Cole.
Juan Cole's Bad Blog
by Efraim Karsh
http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1945
"A modest proposal: every professor of poli sci or modern history
should spend at least one semester out of every ten teaching in one of
the service academies or the Naval War College. Get to know the likes
of Petraeus and realize that these men (and women) not only know their
business well, but in many cases know much more diplomatic and non-
western history than many of their peers in academia. (It would be fun
to hear Juan Cole try to BS his way along concerning contemporary Iraq
with a group of returning colonels and majors who've spent the last 3
years there)."
http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2FhZWY3ZmM0NDQ1M2M3ZjkxZmUzNTc1ZWFiNjFiNWI=
HHW
> Old Juan Cole: A Very Sad Soul
>
> http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1759
Why?
fla...@verizon.net
On 19-Dec-2008, Ariadne <ariad...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 19 Dec, 18:44, last_permutat...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > On Dec 19, 1:18 pm, Ariadne <ariadne....@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Old Juan Cole: A Very Sad Soul
> >
> > >http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1759
> >
> > Well known fascist ZioNazi site...has nothing
> > whatever to do with America's best interests.
>
> Hahahahahaha!!!
>
> Dhimmis all - Cole and following sheep.
But the real joke is how much Juan Cole hates & lies about Jews -
THE SAME WAY THAT IDIOT DOES!!!
Susan
Derk Nerkel
>
> - Show quoted text -
You are a bigger liar Susan. And that picture that someone posted of
your naked fat ass was disgusting. You should be ashamed of your
immodesty by sending those kinds of pictures out on the net you
pervert. But your not a Jew so modesty really doesn’t matter to you
dose it? We could tell it was your by the red hair. Red on the head
like a dick on a dog.
Eli Grubman
Oh yes, it's her all right. She hasn't even bothered to deny it.
Eli
Poor Eli Grabmen is a Real Psychopath! LOL
TWO pathetic, mental, emotional and sexual cripples in chorus! LMAO!
Doctor Panta
--
Everyone check this: psychopath Grabmen glued to his computer today as from
3:25 a.m. again (MID: <142uk4tpdc0af45gj...@4ax.com>).
Watch the poor psycho with no life AT ALL making a complete ass of himself,
AGAIN, for the next FOURTEEN to TWENTY HOURS (and more) at a stretch!
fla...@verizon.net
On 22-Dec-2008, Derk Nerkel <DrJeezo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 22, 9:19 am, flav...@verizon.net wrote:
> > On 19-Dec-2008, Ariadne <ariadne....@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > On 19 Dec, 18:44, last_permutat...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > > > On Dec 19, 1:18 pm, Ariadne <ariadne....@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > > > Old Juan Cole: A Very Sad Soul
> >
> > > > >http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1759
> >
> > > > Well known fascist ZioNazi site...has nothing
> > > > whatever to do with America's best interests.
> >
> > > Hahahahahaha!!!
> >
> > > Dhimmis all - Cole and following sheep.
> >
> > But the real joke is how much Juan Cole hates & lies about Jews -
> > THE SAME WAY THAT IDIOT DOES!!!
> >
> > Susan
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > And what an ignoramus you are to not
> > > know that other countries' armed forces
> > > serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.- Hide quoted text -
> >
> > - Show quoted text -
>
> You [snip lies originally posted by bigots]
Take your meds, Warren.
(& stop believing everything bigots post)
Susan
Pantahose Rheitard aka Panta Rhei is a shitskin grik stalker 24/7 with no penis!
*LOL*
Kalespera, "Dr" Mengele Pantahose, you rheitarded grik a"h!
Ready to spend Channukah stalking ineptly in various newsgroups on THE
Usenet instead of going out and getting greeked? You bet! Of course
you are, you pathological grik swine! It's what you do! I throw my
shoe at you! LOL
<Extremely bugger griks>
*plonk*
Eli