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From Jim Henley:
Hillary Clinton says our withdrawal from Iraq should involve leaving 50,000 troops in Iraq that will continue to conduct combat operations and will continue to need supplying along Iraqi roads and continue to need a massive helicopter and jet presence in Iraq’s skies. The only thing they won’t do, somehow, is involve themselves in Iraq's civil war, which will be quite some trick given that one side of the civil war goes out of its way to attack American troops and the Iraqi government and its constituents; this is also the side we'll continue to conduct combat operations against. The other side is the Iraqi government and its constituents; elements of that side sometimes attack us too, though from what I can tell they mostly only do this when we step all in their shit.Looks like another "hold your nose and vote" scenario come '08, barring some miracle.
You might wonder what the Iraqi government thinks of this grand strategy of the Senator's. The only reasonable interpretation of her statements as reported in the press is that the Senator could care less, thank you. We will stay in Iraq "north of Baghdad" for reasons independent of any wishes Iraq’s government might hold. We’ll "protect the Kurds," whom Iraq's government may not wish protected quite so much, and "counter any Iranian moves into Iraq" that Iraq’s government may not want countered. We will, in other words, do whatever the hell we want in Iraq. We will run the place, but without the fuss and bother of providing security for the citizens or delivering services. The Iraqi government is welcome to "get its act together" if it wishes, which should be easy to do when a foreign country is maintaining 50,000 troops who will act with impunity anywhere within its territory.
There are two words for this kind of military posture: occupation and war. We have those now. Senator Clinton says we should keep having them until the last date has dried into the last fig. She’s just going to try to make it a little quieter for us, and be a little lazier about it.
Update: Juan Cole further demolishes Clinton's justifications for continued US occupation.