The Men Who Came To Dinner

Well, I'm humbled, I must say. All this time I've been saying that one of only two things would ever get us out of Iraq -- total bankruptcy, or a "thumping" (in George Bush's words) military defeat. I had completely overlooked a third possibility, which is that the Iraqis would simply ask us to leave. But now this option is being discussed openly by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. There is apparently a growing resistance on the part of Iraqis to the idea of signing away their sovereignty and self-determination in favor of perpetual occupation, er, "protection", by the U.S. and its armed forces. Well, these people have a nerve, I must say. After all we've done for them! It makes it look like the Iraqis have more national pride than, for example, the Germans or the Koreans, who have put up with our continued presence for 60+ and 50+ years respectively. Plus, really, what's all this nonsense about "sovereignty"? Iraq's sovereignty -- even assuming we can apply that term to a country that was only patched together less than 100 years ago by the European powers -- hasn't been seen since our troops arrived at the gates of Baghdad. And yet they persist in using that term, and what's worse mock our stated goal of spreading democracy to the region by threatening to vote us out. The mockery is aggravated by their characterization of the military occupation as being by "international forces" who are there under the auspices of the U.N. Well, as we all know, our president stood up in front of the U.N. way back in 2001 and said that if they didn't do something about Saddam, we would. The U.N. balked, so we gathered us as many "allies" as we could manage to coerce, I mean "find willing", to join our crusade. But al-Maliki keeps talking about a "U.N. mandate" for our forces to be in Iraq, and further, that it -- the mandate, that is -- is something that is due to "expire" at the end of the year. Clearly someone has not been completely forthcoming with the Iraqis on this issue. This is not something for Iraq to tell the U.N. it can or cannot do; we came, we saw, and we conquered. Can't they get this through their heads? With an attitude like that, how do they ever expect to reap the blessings of democracy? And as for our being allowed to go anywhere we want and do anything we want, how else can we assure that they won't once again become victims of terror, armed attacks, and civil strife? Do they want their country to turn into another Iraq? Oh wait, it's the same country. But you get my point. And to add further insult, they don't want to give our "private contractors" immunity from prosecution for alleged offenses against Iraqi civilians. Hey, these guys are the backbone of our military effort. You don't expect us to get the job done with just our uniformed troops, do you? What an old-fashioned idea. We need our mercenaries, our hired guns, our Rambos more than ever now. We also need to pay them about ten times what the guys in uniform make, since, after all, quality service doesn't come cheap. Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih sounded an early warning as follows: "We need them [the Americans] here for a while longer, and they know they have to remain here for a while." Note that term "while". A "while" is not 100 years. This constitutes a direct affront to Sen. John McCain, it seems to me. Are they trying to make him into a lame duck before he's even elected? Are they, in fact, trying to meddle in American politics by saying this? It certainly appears so.

Well, the moment of truth -- if it ever comes -- will be the point at which the Iraqis really do ask us to leave. Then we'll find out how serious the Bush, or subsequent, administration is about our stated mission in Iraq, as opposed to our real mission, which is to make it permanently occupied territory. Muqtada al-Sadr weighed in with the statement "that he had created a special branch of his militia that would be allowed to carry weapons and attack American troops" -- as opposed to what they're already doing? Maybe he's proposing a kind of "insurgency lite" which wouldn't threaten the locals all that much, but would still insure Iraqi pride and continue to drain American resources. I have to say, these guys have got the cojones -- they tell us right up front what they intend to do, knowing we'll ignore it and continue to suffer losses, and they expect, in return, a policy of benign neglect from the so-called Iraqi government. It's amazing how our current policies are built entirely on the premise of pursuing the "enemy" while totally disregarding everything that "enemy" says. Maybe we could just close down the intel services altogether and save a lot of money, which could then be "reinvested" in the military effort. But wait -- that would eliminate way too many jobs, not a good idea in this time of economic uncertainty. I guess we're just going to have to "stay the course" after all, and continue to ignore all this limp-wristed whimpering about "sovereignty".