Say Anything Blog

He’s saying that a hasty withdrawal of US forces from Iraq would mean possibly losing all that we’ve gained in Iraq over the last couple of years.

WASHINGTON, June 15 (Reuters) - Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said on Sunday his country still needs American troops to help secure progress achieved as a result of what he called a successful U.S. surge strategy.

“We need this continued support of the U.S. forces, of the multinational forces, because the gains we have gained, both security, military economic are still vulnerable,” he told CNN’s Late Edition, weighing into a major issue in the U.S. presidential campaign.

The surge of U.S. troops since 2007—currently there are around 150,000 in Iraq—had dramatically curbed violence. Improved training of Iraqi forces would reduce Baghdad’s dependence on foreign troops and eventually enable withdrawals, said Zebari.

“But this is a process. I think we are not there yet,” he said in Washington.

Zebari is dead-on here, and Democrats would do well to pay attention to what he’s saying.  With the surge we’ve proven that we can keep the peace in Iraq.  Now all that’s left to do is maintain that peace until Iraqi security forces are strong enough to maintain it on their own.  Once that’s complete our troops can come home victorious and Iraq will be a powerful and much-needed ally in a middle east that is still the largest security threat to both America and the world.

All it takes is time.  The question is, why aren’t Democrats willing to give our troops and Iraqi forces the time they need to complete the mission?  Can anyone really argue that it’s sound policy to pull out our troops and leave Iraq vulnerable to Iran and/or Syria?  I don’t think they can, though Democrats have to try because such an argument - even weakly made - is better than admitting that they want to withdraw our troops from Iraq for no other reason than to get back at Bush and Republicans.

At the end of the day we should remember that no politician in this country wants Iraq to go on a day longer than it has to.  Bush is nearly out of office, and for most Republicans it would be much easier to just write the war off so that it’s no longer a political liability to them.  Thankfully, most Republicans realize that while writing the war off may be politically expedient, it’s not a wise policy decision.