We do, however, part company with your speculation on Bush motivation. I don’t see this as a reason, but for the heck of it… I’ll play.

This is a President who endures low poll numbers, personal insults, utter disrepect, and media arrows daily. This is a man who does this because he believes his choice to relieve Saddam of power and help Iraq transform into an Arab democracy was crucial to this nation’s security now, and in the future. If he did not believe those things, he would have acquiesced to public polls long ago.

I suggest that your personal venom for Bush clouds your judgment of the man. You certainly can’t cast yourself as the end all-be all, de facto spokesperson for defining Bush’s innermost thoughts and motivation. And my guess is he can reiterate that this is not about him, but about a secure Iraq ally, and about this nation’s security… but you’ll refuse to believe him anyway.

Yes, a byproduct of achieving workable base agreements that do not tie the hands of the new POTUS (which is something he has stated he will do), is that he will have some sort of goal post met before leaving office. But you assume the byproduct drives the man, and not the expedient facts.

So lets leave the speculation and emotions behind and look at some unarguable truths. The base agreements are driven by three driving factors:

1: expiration of the UN mandate by Dec of this year

2: desire by Iraqis to have US base presence for some temporary duration (with acceptable terms to both sides)

3: Pentagon desire not to see the military and security advances made to date go down the drain by leaving Iraq improperly, or ill-timed

Don’t forget that whomever occupies the Oval Office next year, the Pentagon and military are still charged with the same tasks and goals in Iraq. How easy it is for them to achieve them will depend on who the POTUS is, their own agenda, and their ensuing commands as CIC. They have vested interest in cementing Bush’s “legacy”.

They do have every desire to protect the men and women under their command, safe guard their current advances, and ultimately achieve their Iraq goals… no matter who wins in Nov. It is from this stand the negotiations take place… not for your supposed political games.

I have no issue with you here. You’re open to redeployment/withdrawal if the Iraqi’s want us “out” and they interpret our presence as an occupation and a run on their sovereignty; we agree here.

If these talks completely collapse (which is hard to imagine) and no new agreement is reached to replace the expiring U.N. mandate covering the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq, the United States might have to withdraw. Most likely there will be a all-parties-unhappy compromise, but even here one finds GOP failure. Let me explain.

The gist of all this political hustle that’s fascinating to me comes in two parts: one, it is to ensure Bush’s legacy; and two, it may really damage McCain’s campaign.

For Bush, Iraq will define his legacy by how well the seed of democracy germinates there (as there’s nothing else to define it). As we are now arriving at the summum bonum in Iraq, that event of great importance, we are looking at our future presence, influence and interests in the country and the region –hence, this issue is crucial to Bush: If Bush cannot get what he wants from these talks, in essence, he will have been “thrown out of Iraq.” (Of course, much of this may come down to the degree of what he gets or doesn’t, but still damage is done –based on the current set of failure in negotiations and where they are going.)

For McCain, whether the negotiations end in total failure or they produce an unsatisfactory-each-sides compromise, McCain also could find himself in great political trouble.

Winning the Iraq “war” and continuing Bush’s ME policy are the paramount issues of McCain’s presidential bid. But what if there is no war to win because the Iraqis either tell the US to go home, or won’t allow us to conduct significant operations within Iraq, or from Iraq (here they have already said they will not permit it) or, as you and I discussed, keeping troops kept in Iraq in militarily compromising duties? What if the Iraqis signal that maintaining a high level of U.S. troops in Iraq is not that important to them? These questions and more are what many are now asking in political contexts. How could McCain continue to attack Barack Obama as a defeatist, a surrenderer, a cut-and-runner who would imperil the United States by yanking troops out of Iraq, when the Iraq’s are declaring they want them to leave? Obama would be viewed as having grasped the situation accurately.

McBush would lose almost all his aces in the campaign to Obama!

The main point is that McCain’s pro-occupation stance–as much as it is out of sync with popular opinion–could even further be undermined by Iraq itself if the government that he claims needs major U.S. military assistance says it would prefer to do without it– by degree or categorically, it doesn’t matter which one, either one would still be damaging. (More on this in another post.)

Therefore, as I see it, McCain’s presidential campaign, and Bush’s legacy, is now being held hostage by Iraqi leaders opposed to the US occupation!

As the future of Iraq lays in the balance of the security agreement, so also does Bush and McCain’s futures.

This, in my opinion, explains the heavy-handedness by the US negotiators, and why as I read conservative commentary on the ME there is next to nothing on this subject; however, us liberals are pecking away tomes on this potential eviction notice (whether in degree or kind).

Let’s be frank here, this agreement is crucial to Bush and McCain, and if they don’t come out looking good and smelling like roses on this, it’s great foreign policy ammo for Obama. This explains the silence from the ME hawks on the agreement —they’re clinching their teeth with bated breath.

He says the initial framework agreed upon was to have been an
accord “between two completely sovereign states.”

But he says the U.S. proposals “do not take into consideration
Iraq’s sovereignty.”

How timely the SCOTUS decision. As I mentioned in my post on the path to the Supreme’s decision, the concurring justices are using the agreement between Cuba and the US for their reasoning as to why the basics of the Constitution applies to Gitmo detainees.

The truth of that is Cuba retains full sovereignty of the base, however the US was granted full authority and control over the area and everyone in it.

I don’t expect Maliki to understand the US judicial system… hang it’s confusing enuf to us here… sovereignty vs authority/power. What Maliki and other Iraqis seek is both sovereignty PLUS authority over our military. No way, Jose….

You can post minute to minute updates on the talks, Doug. It will not change my opinion, nor drive me to believe the US is asking for something outrageous. If the Iraqis want our base presence… and they do… then they can take our aid on *our* terms. It’s our military’s butts on the line.

I do not want US soldiers and support personnel subject to Iraq courts or even the slightest hint of Sharia court decisions. I do not want the Iraqis dictating what we can do on those bases, if and when we can move equipment etal.

And because of Gitmo, you now know that a base in a host country can be entirely US authority and control, subject to only US laws.

And that agreement was not created by the evil George W. Bush, but was signed by President Teddy Roosevelt.

Iraqis have options.

1: If we cannot come to an agreement, and they can renew the UN mandate so the next POTUS can battle it out with them

2: If no agreement, they don’t have to renew the UN mandate, and we’ll come home. It would be their choice to take it upon themselves to survive. And this POTUS has always said that if the Iraqi govt asks us to leave, we’d leave.

3: Or they can compromise on the agreement.

But there is only so much compromise on our side that I personally support. So I’m waaaaay okay if they refuse, don’t renew, and we just come home.

(AP) Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says talks with the United States on a longterm security agreement have reached a “dead end.”

Al-Maliki says the talks slumped because each side refused the
other’s demands.

He says the initial framework agreed upon was to have been an
accord “between two completely sovereign states.”

But he says the U.S. proposals “do not take into consideration
Iraq’s sovereignty.”

The prime minister said Friday “this is not acceptable.” The
American demands “violate Iraqi sovereignty. At the end, we
reached a dead end.”

Washington and Baghdad have been negotiating behind closed doors
a deal that would give U.S. troops legal grounds for an extended
stay in Iraq after a United Nations mandate expires Dec. 31.

–Poetic Justice

(AP) New U.S. proposals have failed to overcome Iraqi opposition to a proposed security pact, two lawmakers said Thursday, and a senior government official expressed doubt an agreement could be reached before the U.S. presidential election in November.
…
U.S. negotiators offered new proposals this week after Iraqi lawmakers expressed outrage over the direction of the negotiations, claiming that accepting the U.S. position would cement American military, political and economic domination of this country.

The new proposals appear to be to reduce the 58 military bases to the ‘low dozens’ and willing to compromise on legal immunity for foreign contractors according to information leaked to The Independent.

Dr. Irak, but he tells us the opposition to the agreement has redraw political camps:

According to a Sadrist lawmaker a new coalition is being formed called “The Patriotic Parliamentary Assembly.” The coalition would include Sadrists, Fadhila, Allawi’s “Iraqi List,’ Khalaf al-Layyan’s “National Dialogue Council,” the “Arab Bloc,” and Jaafari’s “National Reform Current” (which he formed this spring after a Dawa leadership struggle with Maliki). As such, it would represent an interesting mix of Shia and Sunni (both religious and secular) parties that are united by their opposition to a long-term U.S.-Iraqi pact.

In essence, it’s a new alignment of nationalists vs decentralists. Just a year ago the Sunni’s would never, ever had joined up with the Sadr’s bloc. That’s just how much evidence there is that the occupation has so soured Iraqis that enemies have joined against the security agreement.

(LAT) In addition, Ned Parker tells us:

Officials in Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s ruling coalition are questioning whether Iraq needs a U.S. military presence even as the two countries press forward with high-pressure negotiations to determine how long American forces will remain.

Some officials in Maliki’s Islamic Dawa Party and his larger Shiite United Iraqi Alliance bloc, which has cooperated with the U.S., have spoken in favor of imposing severe restrictions on U.S. forces after the United Nations mandate authorizing their presence expires at the end of the year.

Finally, Greg Bruno, on the Council of Foreign Relations, tells us:

Five years since the fall of Saddam Hussein, factions in Iraq’s parliament continue to squabble over oil, borders (UPI), and ballots (CNN). But on at least one important matter — security deals between Washington and Baghdad — Iraqis are increasingly in agreement. Opposition to the pacts is growing across Iraq’s sectarian divide, as Sunni lawmakers, Shiite clerics, and some militia leaders have come out against U.S. proposals. Issues separating the sides include what role the United States should play in defending Iraq; its efforts to confront terrorist groups; and legal protections for U.S. troops and contractors.

The US and Iraq, obviously, are at loggerheads on the agreement. We want to perpetuate the occupation, while the Iraq’s don’t want us to.

Are you saying that Pat Robertson is a liar?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,136107,00.html

WASHINGTON — Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson (search) says he warned President Bush before U.S. troops invaded Iraq (search) that the United States would sustain casualties but that Bush responded, “Oh, no, we’re not going to have any casualties.”

White House and campaign advisers denied that Bush made the comment, with Karen Hughes (search) saying, “I don’t believe that happened. He must have misunderstood or misheard it.”

Robertson, in a cable news interview that aired Tuesday night, said God had told him that the war would be messy and a disaster. When he met with Bush in Nashville before the war Bush did not listen to his advice, Robertson said, and believed Saddam Hussein was an evil tyrant who needed to be removed.

“He was just sitting there, like, ‘I’m on top of the world,’ and I warned him about this war,” Robertson said.

“I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, ‘Mr. President, you better prepare the American people for casualties.’ ‘Oh, no, we’re not going to have any casualties.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it’s the way it’s going to be.’ And so, it was messy. The lord told me it was going to be, A, a disaster and, B, messy.”

Oh, no, we’re not going to have any casualties.” —President Bush, discussing the Iraq war with Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, after Robertson told him he should prepare the American people for casualties

There you go again Steve.

The President never said that.

Put aside your bias for just a second. Do you really think that any President, ANY President would make such a claim on the eve of a war? There’s no way.

civil war

Again with the “civil war ” meme.

There is no civil war. That is a falsehood created by the media and disputed by the Iraqis.

100 years

Another intellectually dishonest, although convenient, snippet of a much larger quote which doesn’t fit your template.

It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months

Another half-quote which, if you cared to examine it in totality, you would find that Rumsfeld was referring to the actual invasion and toppling of Saddam.

Come on Steve.

I posted about your chosen pattern of behavior yesterday, yet you continue to forge ahead.

And again with the lie of “civil war”. You then top it off by displaying your spoon fed ‘knowledge’ of the Green Zone and rant on. You proved yet again, as a 100% loyal brainwashed leftist, that you fall hook, line, and stinker for what your ‘thought leaders’ tell you. And we give you a 100% leftist pass.

I lived in The IZ (or Green Zone) for a while in Iraq in 2007 about 100m from the pool behind the “Presidential Palace” across from the Believers Palace. Watched myself “die” as CNN and NBC made up stories from their Hotel down the street which they never left. But then, no ammount of facts or reality will disuade you and you will continue to attack and slander all you want, claiming we are ‘haters’ and you are sooo clean and virtuous when you finally cross too many lines and we (I in particular as I stated a month or more ago) give you and your bile mantra no quarter.

http://electroniciraq.net/news/war-every-day-blog/Opium_in_Iraq_and_Iraqi_warlords-3281.shtml

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Re: “If this were a war you believed in and supported, would you still be bitching and whining, and admit it takes long-term commitment and an unwavering will to persevere when the going gets tough?”

That’s not what the Bush Administration told America.

Oh, no, we’re not going to have any casualties.” —President Bush, discussing the Iraq war with Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, after Robertson told him he should prepare the American people for casualties

“It’s hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army. Hard to imagine.” –Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, testifying before the House Budget Committee prior to the Iraq war, Feb. 27, 2003

“The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces I think is far off the mark.”
–Donald Rumsfeld, February 2003, three weeks before the invasion of Iraq
“It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.”– February 2003

.

Re: “There’s a difference between running out the clock and having insufficient time to achieve generational changes whose fruits might not even be fully known within one’s lifetime. ”

So you are prepared for Americans to be in the middle of a civil war for another 100 years. The Iraqis have a blank check, with no need to reconcile since they now know that no matter what happens, the United States will bail out their warring factions and there will be no consequences for the elite, safe in theGreen Zone, to command their US paid and equipped militias to fight on forever, since the US commitment is unconditional and unlimited.

You will notice that willfully ignorant lefties like Philly Steve love to parade their ignorance and pretend it is fact. That is the mind warping effect of the big lie they have told themselves about the conduct of U.S. Troops and the Bush Administration.

In Philly’s case the pathology is increasingly evident even to casual readers. His rants, often showing more bile than brains are symptomatic of the disease.

Making the “fairly unrealistic” demands even more absurd.

David, what can I say but thank you – not only for your service, but your very real perspective on the false accusations leveled at the CIC and our military about Tora Bora. We should have known, when AQ declared their cease fire at that time that, it was merely to buy time to dash out the back door into Pakistan’s tribal regions.

I stopped dropping by for a while, figuring that it was a waste of time to discuss anything against these levels of hate. Then I concluded that meant the haters had won, so I tried a few posts again.

I don’t mean to laugh….but I found that too funny not to.

Moving forward…

I now prefer that the Iraqis be given a deadline. And it be real. Then, as I believe Paul Krugman phrased it, the Iraqis will have to start paying retail for their feuds. I cannot guarantee that “my” plan will work. Can you guarantee that unlimited, no conditions asked, handouts to the Iraqi government will work for the next 100 years than it has for the past five?

Steve,

I’d say that’s rather insulting to the Iraqis who have been giving their lives in the cause of “standing up”. It took me about 5 years just to finish my undergraduate work; you don’t suppose your timeline expectations are fairly unrealistic? It takes, I believe, 3 years just for Iraqi officers to be trained and join the force.

If this were a war you believed in and supported, would you still be bitching and whining, and admit it takes long-term commitment and an unwavering will to persevere when the going gets tough? Or are you complaining, because you were never on board to begin with, so can only do nothing short of being a ball-and-chain anchor to actually pushing forward to succeeding in Iraq?

I heard someone describe how this one Iraqi finally joined the Iraqi security forces because he finally determined “the winning side” wasn’t going to abandon them to the insurgents and terrorists. America can come home. But Iraqi allies are stuck there to suffer the wrath and consequences of having aligned with us, should we “cut-and-run” and hand victory over to the chaos-makers. Iraqis are paying close attention to Washington and to the news media. How does American public sentiments affect our enemies and our allies in Iraq, when the mood of the country is to “get out of Iraqi NOW”? How does it affect the fence-sitters, who don’t want to ally themselves to the losing side? And we say and do things that make them believe that the losing side is us?

What could we have accomplished and how much more quickly, had we shown a unified, unwavering front, after the decision for war had been made? The time for debate was before, not after the decision.

the latest Sen Intel Com Phase II report looked at 5 Bush Admin speeches and dismissed EVERYTHING else that was said from 1990-2003 by anyone else, and it did this under the idea that those 5 speeches from President Bush were more moving and influential to the American people than anything else. I say that when you have 1 out of every 5 senators as a Presidential prospect, and each was making thousands of speeches to millions of people. I mean really, the math is simple hundreds of politicians making hundreds of speeches each to thousands-even millions-of people all these speeches tell lies about the American war effort, and we compare that to the impact of 5 Bush admin speeches. That lopsidedness is where the power is. GWB can order people into battle, but the people making those speeches in support or agains the American war effort are the people who are influencing the national political will. War is defined as one nation imposing its political will upon another. When politicians-Democrats specifically-deliberately, freely, mislead the American people to degrade that will just for political gain….there ought to be a bit more than an “oh yeah, them too” when it comes to accountability.

Excellent, Scott!

Steve again:

Because then I might believe that there would be truly a change, and that I was not just being stalled again as George W. Bush runs out the clock to January 2009 and hands it all off to someone else.

There’s a difference between running out the clock and having insufficient time to achieve generational changes whose fruits might not even be fully known within one’s lifetime. I suppose you were like some Iraqis who had unrealistic expectations, thinking if America could send a man to the moon, defeat their dictator in 3 weeks with minimal casualties, why couldn’t America fix the electricity and why can’t we have singing daffodils and fuzzy bunnies and peace and prosperity in the span of 5 years?

Well done!

Ok … I was a forward air combat controller at Tora Bora when we threw everything in the conventional arsenal at targets there. Tell me which airstrike order my team issued the Bush WH withdrew or modified? Tell me which weapon request the Bush WH withdrew or substituted?

Only signals intel indicated UBL was present at Tora Bora in Nov/Dec 2001 by phone intercepts. By then UBL and AQ was relying on foot couriered communications. There was no actual visual sighting, no on-the-ground intel source of UBL’s presence. The level of bombardment of Tora Bora was so significant, you would have to be very lucky to make the run, and survive, to the outer cordon – above ground or underground.

Unless you were there, don’t make reckless statement and say we didn’t do enough or allowed an HVT evade capture.

Other than Chuck Hegel, I do not recall any Conservatives holding George W. Bush accountable for the mess that he intends to pass on to “someone” else.

.

I notice that my honesty about Democratic failings is not the slightest mirrored in Scott’s response with even the slightest admission that Republicans have any accountability for the occupation of Iraq. (Well, perhaps a Conservative will always admit that a Republican can be “slightly” accountable, but never to the degree to which they insist Democrats be held accountable).

Let me repeat again, were a Democrat to have been President when a plane load of 170 pallets of cash, totaling more than $ 9 billion, was shipped into Iraq and then “lost”, without even a single dollar being traceable, Conservatives would be screaming! Instead we just hear an “Oops!”

.

I would be more “patient” with America “turning the corner in Iraq” if Conservatives were “Hopping mad” about all the incompetence documented in the Iraq occupation. Because then I might believe that there would be truly a change, and that I was not just being stalled again as George W. Bush runs out the clock to January 2009 and hands it all off to someone else.

.

Let me make some predictions:

If Barak Obama is elected…

“The Left” is going to give him about five minutes leeway on keeping his promise, then he is going to be as ferociously attacked for failing to keep his promises as an Republican.

“The Right” is going to start declaring, “Well, everything was going great when George W. Bush was president, so President Obama is now 100% accountable for everything that happens from Day One on.”

FoxNews will start keeping counters on their pundits’ screens counting “how many Americans are dying on Obama’s watch” (As well as “Why isn’t bin laden caught yet” stories starting to appear.) All designed to shift 100% accountability to president Obama. Liberals might turn hypocritical and make excuses for President Obama, but Conservatives will be at least as bad in that they will join in this chorus enthusiastically.

If John McCain is elected…

We will be in a shooting war with Iran within two years. And, if the NeoConservatives run that one, our occupation of Iran, three times the size of Iraq, will make Baghdad look like heaven.

.

I do not believe that Barak Obama is some kind of “saint”. I personally would have preferred Joe Biden, but his tendency to racists’ comments makes that impossible. But I do believe that 100% of the political appointees of the Bush Administration (the “Loyal Bushies”) have to be taken out of government (usually only the top ten or twenty percent of political appointees leave if the Parties do not change: The rest just play musical chairs).

I no longer trust anyone who made it through the Karl Rove screen process to have America’s best interest at heart.

I’m sure I will be disappointed by some of Barak Obama’s results, I hope not too many. But I am ready to try another party in the White House because the one that has had it for the past eight years has screwed up too much.

And I no longer believe that sacrificing more American lives and treasure in Iraq will somhow “bring the Iraqi warlords to their senses.” Only the prospect that American will stop training, equiping and paying their militias will do that. And “100 year” commitments are not the way to do it.

.

P.S.
To Scott and your comment, ” Nothing is going to happen to those people for right or wrong, and (here’s the important part) even if it did…it wouldn’t change anything.”

Unfortunately, “Yes”, things are happening to those responsible for the bungling in Iraq:

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2008/jan/99684.htm

January 24, 2008
The Department of State is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Paul Wolfowitz as the Chairman of the Secretary of State’s International Security Advisory Board (ISAB).

He is back, making policy again.