US to pull out of Iraq

[Ian K]

Would you support a soldier held indefinitely on an accusation that he looked at an Arab woman? Without a SOFA, that's what you can get.

Which is exactly what I am talking about. The SOFA expires Dec 31, 2011, and the Iraqi government was not willing to extend it. Hence my position that withdrawal of troops due to no SOFA is the correct thing to do.

The SOFA discussion is a sideshow. The reality behind this is that the Maliki government (with its heavy Iranian - Muqtada Al-Sadr influence) wants the US combat power out of the region. They want the US training, equipment, money and the bases but not a material military threat to Iran. US combat leaders know they can't defend a force of several thousand trainers and logisticians without at least a brigade combat team and that size of a force is intolerable to the Iranians and therefore Al-Sadr and their proxies in the Maliki government.

Yes, this is true. Again, by not extending the SOFA, the Iraqis are using their sovereign rights, which we (all forces, not just US) helped win them, to force US troops (and others) out of the area. Isn't that what we were supposedly fighting for Allowing them to control their own fate? For better or for worse, that is why we were there. Supposedly.

This unilateral withdrawal is now an open door to the Iranians to dominate the region, a return to the Iraqi sectarian civil war and the Turks to settle a score with the Kurds and the NATO/US to lose a stabilizing presence in the most volatile region in the world.

But most troubling to me is that Muqtada Al-Sadr’s Day Brigade is now free to resume civil war and one has to hope it doesn’t parallel to historical atrocities such as Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

Yep, all of that is correct. How long should we baby sit them? Again, we went in to topple Saddam and restore "freedom" (as in freedom from Saddam) to Iraq. That was accomplished. We stayed to help restore order and infrastructure and train the Iraqi forces (how many times have we done that and had it bite us in the ass later ...) But, again, Iraq is not a US territory nor a NATO possession, and forcing the Iraqi government to allow us to maintain a significant military presence would create a monumental nightmare as far as international relations go.

Ian

Ian