Interesting speculation by Robert Novak on Bush administration plan for Iraq. Consider the source:
Inside the Bush administration policymaking apparatus, there is strong feeling that U.S. troops must leave Iraq next year. This determination is not predicated on success in implanting Iraqi democracy and internal stability. Rather, the officials are saying: Ready or not, here we go.
. . .
Whether Bush or Kerry is elected, the president or president-elect will have to sit down immediately with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The military will tell the election winner there are insufficient U.S. forces in Iraq to wage effective war. That leaves three realistic options: Increase overall U.S. military strength to reinforce Iraq, stay with the present strength to continue the war, or get out.
Well-placed sources in the administration are confident Bush’s decision will be to get out. They believe that is the recommendation of his national security team and would be the recommendation of second-term officials. An informed guess might have Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state, Paul Wolfowitz as defense secretary and Stephen Hadley as national security adviser. According to my sources, all would opt for a withdrawal.
. . .
Abandonment of building democracy in Iraq would be a terrible blow to the neoconservative dream. The Bush administration’s drift from that idea is shown in restrained reaction to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s seizure of power. While Bush officials would prefer a democratic Russia, they appreciate that Putin is determined to prevent his country from disintegrating as the Soviet Union did before it. A fragmented Russia, prey to terrorists, is not in the U.S. interest.
I’m not exactly what “get out” means here. Removal of a majority of the troops? Removal of all the troops? I have my doubts on the latter. Not because it would contradict what the administration has been saying–we’ve become accustomed to it saying one thing and doing another–but rather because it would be an abandonment of our military, financial, and corporate interests in the region. Given what we’ve spent to establish this Middle East beachhead, I’m skeptical that we will completely abandon our investments there.