So this, then, is the neoconservative position on why we ought to just ignore Maliki and stay in Iraq as long as we like, conveniently (and predictably) supplied by Max Boot:
But Maliki’s public utterances do not provide a reliable guide as to when it will be safe to pull out U.S. troops. Better to listen to the military professionals. The Post recently quoted Brig. Gen. Bilal al-Dayni, commander of Iraqi troops in Basra, as saying of the Americans, “We hope they will stay until 2020.” That is similar to the expectation of Iraq’s defense minister, Abdul Qadir, who says his forces cannot assume full responsibility for internal security until 2012 and for external security until 2018.
What would happen if we were to pull out much faster, on a 16-month timetable? Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, says that would be “very dangerous” — the same words used by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Of course, if the Iraqi government tells us to leave, we will have to leave. But, the prime minister’s ambiguous comments notwithstanding, the Iraqi government is saying no such thing, because most Iraqis realize that the gains of the surge are fragile and could be undone by a too-rapid departure of U.S. forces.
Actually, Maliki’s remarks weren’t ambiguous at all. But this is of no consequence to Boot, who will find the Iraqis who want to do what Boot himself wants to do, which is stay for another 12 years - minimum.
I think Barack Obama ought to take those 12 years and shove them down John McCain’s throat, rhetorically, this very evening. That, in fact, would be the basis for a great commercial: The neoconservitives who exercise a great deal of influence over John McCain’s campaign want the United States to remain in Iraq for another 12 years.
Do you think the United States should remain in Iraq for another 12 years?
But in any event, Boot and those who think like him now need to drop the pretense. For if we can only leave Iraq when our generals say it’s no longer “dangerous” - for them or for us? - then it makes a mockery of the magnainmous case for war that so many hawks leaned so heavily on for so many years.
And indeed, it becomes incumbent upon Boot and those who think like him to admit, now and publically, that the magnanimous case for war is and always was a grotesque fabrication. This has never been about the poor, oppressed Iraqis, who can now stuff it because we’ll leave if and when we feel like it. But then I guess it’s a little late for honesty at this point, eh?
