And so in the end, a war that has taken the lives of nearly 4,000 Americans and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, further destabilized the Middle East, provided one-stop shopping for fledgling terrorists and sullied the legacy of an American president ends not with a bang or a whimper – but with a business deal that will ensure that George Bush’s Forever War is just that.
That is the substance of reports the Baghdad government, seeking protection against the inevitable coup attempts and foreign threats once a draw-down of U.S. troops finally commences, has graciously offered the U.S. a deal that it can hardly refuse: Preferential treatment for American oil companies . . . er, investments in return for an indefinite U.S. troop presence.
In short, a Shiite-dominated nanny state.
Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, President Bush’s adviser on the war, calls the deal “a set of principles from which to begin formal negotiations.” In this case on a rust bucket with too many miles on the odometer and four bald tires, but with a limitless supply of gasoline to keep it on the road so long as it stays away from Basra, where things have gone from bad and are stuck on worse.
There’s something in the deal for almost everyone:
* The U.N. can lift those niggling restrictions on Iraqi sovereignty in place since the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 sooner rather than later, leaving Baghdad and Washington to do pretty much damned well what they please. Which come to think of it, they’ve been doing all along anyhow.
* The Al-Maliki government can drag its feet indefinitely on political reconciliation while getting long-term coup insurance in the form of 50,000 or so American nannies who will rush to the rescue of the inevitably hapless Iraqi security forces at the first hint of trouble.
* The White House can do the deal without Senate approval, while continuing to give the finger to Iran from the mega-bases it has built and wouldn’t have given up under any circumstances.
* American oil companies will get protection from the nannies as they merrily tap one of the world’s largest oil reserves while continuing to charge usurious prices at the pump and reap shameful profits.
So what’s in it for the American people? Uh . . . give me a sec and I’m sure I’ll think of something.
Oh, you mean this was all about oil to begin with?
REACTION ROUNDUP
John Cole at Balloon Juice:
“Permanent bases- whee! Apparently our grand adventure in Iraq has proven to be so successful, we would like future generations to have the opportunity to experience Baghdad in a flak jacket. If you think about it, that is only fair, since future generations are going to be paying the 2.4 trillion dolar costs anyway.
“At any rate, all throughout this rhetorical dance party from the Bush administration, in which we had to take out Iraq because of WMD, then we switched to a new step and stated we were there for peace and Democracy, it has been suggested that the notion of permanent bases in Iraq was merely fantasy from the lunatic conspiracy theorists on the left. As I have learned over the past few years- you don’t diss the insight of the smelly dirty hippies. Once again, they were right.”
Ed Morrissey at Captain’s Quarters:
“The favorable treatment of American investments will restart the meme that the Bush administration invaded Iraq to get oil contracts for American firms at the expense of the French and the Russians. That ignores the obvious point that we could have dropped sanctions and allowed free trade with Saddam Hussein at any time after 1991 if that was our only concern. The French and the Russians begged us to do that from 1999 to 2003. In fact, if oil was our only concern, we never would have kicked Saddam out of Kuwait. We would have shrugged it off as the evolution of Middle East consolidation.”
Cernig at NewsHoggers:
“That magic number of 50,000 troops. How many US politicians have already mentioned it over the past few years? It’s useless as a COIN force (and any authority for such would have to stem from the Iraqi government) but serves as a tripwire to stop Kuwait (or Turkey or Iran) invading – or all those Sunnis armed by the Awakening mounting a new coup, which won’t please said Sunni militias.”
Dave Schuler at The Glittering Eye:
“That will certainly provide sustenance to those who’ve been calling the present Iraqi national government a “puppet government” but I honestly don’t think that’s correct. I think that this represents the next, obvious, and inevitable step in a process that began in March of 2003 with the U. S. invasion of Iraq that removed the government of Saddam Hussein.”
Spencer Ackerman at TPM Muckraker:
“Make no mistake: this is Nouri al-Maliki offering the U.S. a permanent presence in return for guaranteeing the security of his government . . . In exchange for a platform for the indefinite projection of American power throughout the Middle East, the Bush Administration probably considers protection for Maliki and his coterie to be a small price to pay.”
Matthew Yglesias at TheAtlantic.com:
“The question here isn’t whether we should literally stay the course, the question is whether or not we should undertake an open-ended commitment to propping up whatever form of Iraqi government will agree to pay host to our military bases.”