One Utah

I couldn’t write this any better myself, so I’ll quote Spencer Ackerman from Talking Points Memo this morning:

What? Permanent U.S. bases in Iraq? I’ve never heard of anything so absurd! Why, you — you — you conspiracy theorist! How can you be so shrill, so irresponsible, so, so, so…

Oh, wait.

Yes, after years of denial and obfuscation, now it’s official.

Iraq’s government is prepared to offer the U.S. a long-term troop presence in Iraq and preferential treatment for American investments in return for an American guarantee of long-term security including defense against internal coups, The Associated Press learned Monday.

Ackerman has more about the new agreement. A joint declaration of principles was signed today. Apparently the threat of a 72,000 strong Sunni insurgency financed by U.S. taxpayers was enough leverage to get Maliki to agree to permanent bases and oil production sharing agreements. Now, what will Moqtada do? What will our “allies” the “concerned citizens” of Anbar and Diyala do? Not since 2004 have our forces had to handle major combat against both the Sunnis and the Shiites at the same time.

UPDATE: “War czar” LTG Douglas Lute claims that Congress is powerless to stop the permanent base agreement because it’s not in the form of a treaty.

UPDATE: Here’s the White House spin on permanent occupation of Iraq: “This moves us closer to normalized, bilateral relations between our two countries.”

More from Ackerman:

Credit the administration with a sudden candor. For the first time in four years, it’s admitting that its conception of a normal Iraq is one in which the U.S. military operates there forever and ever and ever.

UPDATE: Maybe Bush doesn’t have to go to the Senate for ratification of his permanent occupation deal, but the Iraqi constitution requires a two-thirds vote of parliament. This isn’t likely because last May, 144 out of 275 parliamentarians signed a petition calling for a withdrawal of U.S. forces.

This entry was posted Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 10:14 am and is filed under 2008 Election, Disaster, George W. Bush, Iraq, National Politics, War. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.