The Resiliency of Empire

Sooner or later vague platitudes about "ending" the "war" will have to give way to concrete policy. What exactly does the Hedger in Chief have in mind for Iraq policy?

Patrick Cockburn on the recent SOFA with Iraq:

On November 27 the Iraqi parliament voted by a large majority in favor of a security agreement with the US under which the 150,000 American troops in Iraq will withdraw from cities, towns and villages by June 30, 2009 and from all of Iraq by December 31, 2011...

The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), signed after eight months of rancorous negotiations, is categorical and unconditional. America’s bid to act as the world’s only super-power and to establish quasi-colonial control of Iraq, an attempt which began with the invasion of 2003, has ended in failure.

Gareth Porter reports on the Obama administration's effort to defy the expressed will of the Iraqi people:

U.S. military leaders and Pentagon officials have made it clear through public statements and deliberately leaked stories in recent weeks that they plan to violate a central provision of the U.S.-Iraq withdrawal agreement requiring the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities by mid-2009 by reclassifying combat troops as support troops... Obama's decision to keep Gates, who was known to be opposed to Obama's withdrawal timetable, as defense secretary confirmed the belief of the Pentagon leadership that Obama would not resist the military effort to push back against his Iraq withdrawal plan.

According to SecDef Gates, there is bipartisan congressional support for "a long-term residual presence" of as many as 40,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and such a presence for "decades" has been the standard practice following "major U.S. military operations" since the beginning of the Cold War.