Biden: No bad guys in Iraq
Jul 18th, 2008 by Christian Hudson
From ABC News, Joe Biden (D) DE:
We know where [the bad guys] reside. And it’s not in Iraq.
The full quote from ABC is:
If John [McCain] wants to know where the bad guys live, come back with me to Afghanistan,” Biden said. “We know where they reside. And it’s not in Iraq.(Link )
Ok, so there are no bad guys in Iraq now? Did the troop surge work then? No wait, he just said in April:
[The surge] brought down violence. But we went from drowning to treading water. And now we’re having 30 to 40 Americans die a month, 225 a month wounded. and we’re spending $3 billion a month with no end in sight…(Link )
Senator Biden if there are no bad guys in Iraq, then who is killing our troops?
If Iraq, or any other nation occupied the U.S., wouldn’t you fight back? You are fighting Iraqis who do not want you there.
The terrorists are in Afghanistan.
Am I the only one that’s noticed that since Pervez Musharaff is essentially powerless it’s become okay for our military leaders to trash talk Pakistan for not doing enough to control our Afghan border? And I haven’t heard anyone in the administration refer to Pakistan as “an important ally in the GWOT” in a while.
Labeling terrorists as bad guys and focusing on hunting them down makes for simple sound bites, but it ignores a much larger picture. Forget the “War on Terror.” That’s rhetoric. Take out a map, and take a look at it.
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As a matter of international policy, we’re waging war on the concept of fundmantalist Islamic national governance. In the short run, radical Islamic government threates our supply of oil. In the long run, like it or not, it indeed threatens our way of life, just as global communism once did. So, as a matter of national policy, our alternatives are simple: confront it, now or later; or, isolate ourselves from it, which, in any case, our role as a net importer (big-time) in the global oil demand/suppy cycle makes impossible.
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As a matter of international policy, the U.S. favors secular governments that are tolerant of their citizens’ activities (e.g., their religious practices). Especially where we pump our oil, we like calm, quiet, predictable government. We’d prefer democratically elected governments running those oil wells, but, hey, you can’t have everything.
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Our policy drives our strategy: we’re really at war with Iran, and have been, through democrat and republican presidents alike, since 1980. Iran seeks control of the region. Iran seeks to control our supply of oil. Iran cannot be ignored. Iran must be dealt with.
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So long as Iran can’t project sustained air (or missile) power much beyond its own borders, it’s a war we don’t need to fight on all fronts at once. We can win it stepwise, one nation at a time. Starting with Afghanistan.
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The invasion of Afghanistan was easy to justify on the basis of 9/11 payback, but it has always been about establishing a position at Iran’s eastern flank. Because there’s no oil there, it’s of less immediate importance, strategically speaking, than…
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…Iraq, which is, indeed, about oil, but perhaps more importantly about flanking Iran at its western frontier. The goal in Iraq is to button the place up, plant the flag in a base there, and return to…
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…Afghanistan, which, for now, is troubled, but basically secure. A “surge” there later this year or next will secure our position and threaten Iran from two sides, leaving us free to…
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…address Pakistan as may be required by regional politics. With nukes and missiles in play, it’s in our vital interest to make sure Pakistan stays under more or less secular rule. But the real target, make no mistake, is and always has been, Iran.
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Iran’s only defensive military strategy is to acquire missiles and nuclear weapons and hold the region, particularly Israel, hostage. By doing so, they believe, they can keep us at bay militarily while they spread their influence throughout the Middle East and, later, Europe. This was North Korea’s strategy, too, and Libya’s, and even South Africa’s: to preserve their “way of life” (in other words, their domestic and regional power), and to blunt international economic pressure, by credibly threatening their neighbors with annihilaton.
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And Bin Laden? It would be nice to root him out and catch or kill him, and the other “bad guys,” too. But, its more important to stabilize the governments around the caves and tunnels in which they hide.
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Which is what we’re doing. And which is now, under the cold light of hard reality, becoming apparent that we will continue to do, under either Obama or McCain.
…and then we can move all our armies to Kamchatka and draw another card?
…and then we can move all our armies to Kamchatka and draw another card?
A good, strategic location (if I remember RISK correctly) for your armies and also a good, strategic (albeit paint-thinner in a plastic bottle) Vodka for poor college students, back in my college student days…not that I would know about that sort of thing…*uuuuuurp*.
Japan gets Kamchatka.
And, you’re implictly right, noman: it is a game.
Iraq is not where we need to go to focus our attention. Afghanistan is. It is not that I want to do so, and I do not think we even have to do so to defeat terrorism. Personally, I would rather let China liberate them and turn Afghanistan into an autonomous region.
Christian asks: “Senator Biden if there are no bad guys in Iraq, then who is killing our troops?”
Now it is mainly Iraqi Nationalists who are killing our troops in Iraq! Who can blame them? Who can call them “bad guys”. Biden is making this distinction, between nationalists and terrorists (al-Qaeda) and the like.
Al gives an interesting analysis of what I believe to be the Bush strategy against Iran. The problem so far is that it is not working, as it has strengthened Iran’s power and influence in the Middle East region. Going into Iraq was a major blunder, as is now obvious. That said, it is good to see violence subsiding under the military leadership of Petreaus. Now is the time to encourage Iraqi political progress, as Bush’s “general time horizon” for troop withdrawals from Iraq has just been proposed. It seems that Bush is moving toward the long held Obama position!!!
Perry’s got a point, kinda/sorta. As this particular instance of the Great Game…
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanking_maneuver#Strategic_flanking. Check it out. As noman observed, it reads just like the back of the RISK game’s box. Truth is even stranger than the Parker Brothers.
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…plays out and they begin to feel the pincers closing in, Iran’s short-term resolve to dominate the region appears to be softening, and they may be quietly becoming more willing to settle. The Administration seems to be shifting to take advantage, but not to Obama. They’re shifting from Cheney’s squeeze-play cudgel to Condoleezza Rice’s tentative diplomatic carrot.
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Make no mistake, though. If Iran doesn’t respond to the overture, and soon, the squeeze will be back on. Iran knows this. As they did in 1980, when they cynically released our hostages on Reagan’s Inauguration Day, they know they have a unique window of opportunity, here and now, to drive a pretty sweet deal around the upcoming U.S. election.
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Can you say Carpe Diem? In Farsi?
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Don’t be surprised if we haven’t already begun to build a diplomatic mission in Iran, the first since the Shah high-tailed it out of there, by Fall.
Problem with the squeeze, Al, is that there is not much behind it, as our troops are now stretched to the limit in Iraq, and there are more demanding needs in Afghanistan. Thus, there is no way to “seize the day”, as you put it!
Now we could try to use Israel to “seize the day”, but I don’t think the Iran threat to Israel is sufficient for them to take such a risk, the risk being, of course, to stir up the entire Middle East against them all over again.
Israel has shown recently that they see a better path for them to make peace not war. Otherwise how can you explain Sarkozy’s current successes with Olmert and Abbas, with Rice’s support, not to mention the prisoner exchange with Hezbollah. The Israeli’s also have taken a diplomatic initiative with the Syrians.
This is all great news, in my view, not to mention the window now opening for us to begin to withdraw troops from Iraq, probably redeployed to Afghanistan, which brings up the crucial question for us: How much can longer can we keep stretching military short of having a draft?
The burden has to be spread to all Americans, which I am sure will move our politics toward a more aggressive path to peace, not war. I favor that!!!