He's acknowledged the risk of genocide that accompanies withdrawal from Iraq. He's proposed the creation of a small stabilization reserve that seems calculated to prevent massacres elsewhere. And now he has suggested a willingness to re-invade Iraq from positions in Kuwait and Baghdad in the event that genocide does in fact occur in Iraq; specifically:
I believe that once we are out of Iraq, the U.S. must retain sufficient forces in the region to prevent a genocide, deter a regional spillover of the civil war, and prevent an Al Qaeda safe haven. We will most likely need to retain Quick Reaction Forces in Kuwait and in the Persian Gulf. We will also need some presence in Baghdad, inside the Green Zone, to protect the American Embassy and other personnel.
There is legitimate question as to the feasibility of invading Iraq again after we have left, and perhaps an even better question about our ability to summon the political will-power to do so. But a limited deployment to a single city or sector as an atrocity unfolds is not so wildly implausible as to be rejected out of hand, and there is always the possibility that the worst might be deterred merely by a declared willingness to do so, especially if the would be offenders have some stake in continued US backing.
I am not fully convinced, but this is the central issue of the campaign to me and Edwards is the only one on the democratic side (yet -- the field may be incomplete) who seems to acknowledge it. Moreover, Edwards is so dramatically more progressive on virtually every other issue of concern to progressives, and so very far ahead of everyone in terms of electability, that he is starting look pretty good to me.
I'm totally straight.
Hat tips to TPM and Ezra Klein and Electoral Math
No comments:
Post a Comment