{"id":2171,"date":"2007-04-11T17:52:46","date_gmt":"2007-04-11T21:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2007\/04\/candidates_posi\/"},"modified":"2007-04-11T17:52:46","modified_gmt":"2007-04-11T21:52:46","slug":"candidates_posi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2007\/04\/candidates_posi\/","title":{"rendered":"Candidate’s Positions On Troops In Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"

Per Kos<\/a>, Governor Richardson is the only “major” (Democratic) presidential candidate calling for American troops to withdraw completely out of Iraq.
\n(He actually calls for this to happen within a year, which is easier for him to say because that’s before the election.)
\nThis is a nice goal, but I don’t think it’s a good strategy now. The risks of that country melting down are too great for the U.S. to completely abandon it.
\nAt the same time, following President Bush’s “plan” of an indefinite status quo is unworkable; a waste of American life and treasure with no end in sight.
\nThe way out, it seems, lies somewhere in between. A reasonable plan involves the following:
\n(1) A drastic downscaling of the American presence. Iraqis have to take charge of their own security. Yesterday. It’s their country; they’ve got to work their problems out. It’s become obvious that the issues plaguing Iraq will continue to simmer just below the surface as long as the U.S. military continues babysitting the country. Moreover, we cannot afford to maintain this a failed nation building-via-military-force policy. Ultimately, 150,000 American troops are not going to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, no matter how hard they try. The solution has to come from the Iraqi people.
\n(2) Maintenance of a safety net. That said, in the near-term America must maintain a force there in case the bottom drops out. I’m not a military strategist, so I don’t know exactly how many would be needed. I assume at a minimum we’ll need something like 30,000 troops there for the next three years to dose fires. This doesn’t need to be a highly visible force, subject to danger, but it probably needs to be there to ensure stability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Per<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2171","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}