Fascinating exchange between Sullivan and Max Boot in regards to the question of “what now” in Iraq, with Boot comparing Iraq to Germany (as all neocons do) and saying something amazing:

The broader point is that the success of American military interventions has usually been closely related to their length. The longer we stay, the more successful we are. When we get out too quickly–as we did in Haiti in the 1990’s–the situation often goes to hell. So if we want to secure a lasting victory in Iraq we need to stay around for a good long while.

There may be something to this, but in fact this represents an utter deception of the American people, who never would have backed this war in the first place if they had realized it was going to last “a good long while,” as in 30 or 50 years.

Iraq was going to we wham, bam, thank you Saddam, and no one - least of all the neocons themselves - at any point raised the specter of half a century in Iraq. Now we’re told that it’s just what we have to do; we have no choice but to incur the costs.

But, what will those costs be?

Understand, we’re not merely talking about American soldiers’ lives, though that’s part of it. At what cost the Jihadi recruiting factor that Sullivan invokes? But on a more basic level: For a country sliding into recession, where higher energy prices and the corresponding inflation are pushing us towards a new era of stagflation - how in the world can this country afford to spend the $430 million per day to occupy Iraq for the decades Boot believes may be necessary?

There’s such a thing as imperial overstretch, and historial Paul Kennedy might have been talking about the U.S. circa 2008 when he wrote:

If, however, too large a portion of the state’s resources is diverted from wealth creation and allocated instead to military purposes, then that is likely to lead to a weakening of national power over the longer term.  In the same way, if a state overextends itself strategically–by, say, the conquest of extensive territories or the waging of costly wars–it runs the risk that the potential benefits from external expansion may be outweighed by the great expense of it all–a dilemma which becomes acute if the nation concerned has entered a period of relative economic decline.

Look around you. Think we’re in a period of “relative economic decline?”

The neocons, of course, would say we have no choice but to incur this cost; understand that there are always those who make this case.

Then Sullivan asks this:

It’s not our country; and it isn’t threatening us any more. What right do we have to stay?

But Boot and other neocons believe our “right” is inherent. This is the United States; we can do whatever we want. And that makes it right; for us, and for the world.