Republicans believe that if withdrawals do not begin, their party will be wiped out in the 2008 election.
by Paul Craig Roberts
The Bush-Cheney White House, which told the American people in 2003 that the Iraqi invasion would be a three- to six-week affair, now tells us that the U.S. occupation is permanent. Forever.
Attentive Americans—of which, alas, there are so few—had already concluded that the occupation was permanent. Permanence is the obvious message from the massive and fortified U.S. embassy under construction in Iraq and from the large permanent military bases that the Bush regime is building in Iraq.
Bush regime propagandists have created a false analogy with “the Korean model” in their effort to sell the permanent occupation of Iraq as necessary for Iraq’s security. More than one half century after the close of the Korean War, U.S. troops continue to be based in Korea, as they are in Germany more than six decades after the end of World War II.The rationale for the U.S. troops in South Korea is to remind North Korea that an attack on the south is an attack on the United States itself. The rationale for U.S. troops in Germany disappeared when Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev brought the Cold War to an end.
There is, of course, no similarity between Iraq and Korea. There was no insurgency in Korea and no attacks on U.S. troops based in South Korea once the fighting stopped. The presence of U.S. troops in South Korea has produced many protest demonstrations by South Koreans, but the U.S. troops in the south have had no exposure to combat since the war ended in 1953.
In contrast, the insurgency in Iraq continues to rage and could expand dramatically if Shiites were to join the Sunnis in attacks on U.S. forces. Most American military leaders no longer believe the insurgency can be defeated. Permanent occupation means permanent insurgency. Indeed, an attempt at permanent occupation could possibly unify the Arabs in a joint effort to expel the Americans.
The absurd analogy with Korea is so far-fetched that it raises the question of whether the Bush-Cheney regime has entered a new, higher level of delusion. Bush cannot keep troops in Iraq permanently unless he intends to remain permanently in the White House. Even some Republicans in Congress are talking about beginning withdrawals of U.S. troops in September. Republicans believe that if withdrawals do not begin, their party will be wiped out in the 2008 election.
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