Iraq 4-Evah

Well, at least they're being honest:

President Bush envisions a long-term U.S. troop presence in Iraq similar to the one in South Korea where American forces have helped keep an uneasy peace for more than 50 years, the White House said Wednesday.

The comparison was offered as the Pentagon announced the completion of the troop buildup ordered by Bush in January. The last of about 21,500 combat troops to arrive were an Army brigade in Baghdad and a Marine unit heading into the Anbar province in western Iraq [...]

Presidential spokesman Tony Snow said Bush has cited the long-term Korea analogy in looking at the U.S. role in Iraq, where American forces are in the fifth year of an unpopular war. Bush's goal is for Iraqi forces to take over the chief security responsibilities, relieving U.S. forces of frontline combat duty, Snow said.

"I think the point he's trying to make is that the situation in Iraq, and indeed, the larger war on terror, are things that are going to take a long time," Snow said. "But it is not always going to require an up-front combat presence."

Instead, he said, U.S. troops would provide "the so-called over-the-horizon support that is necessary from time to time to come to the assistance of the Iraqis. But you do not want the United States forever in the front."

South Korea is a terrible model for what we face in Iraq. First of all, it wasn't a democracy for most of the time - Syngman Rhee was a dictator who ruled the South for decades - so unless there's an admission here that Iraq needs a strongman, it's a strange analogy. Second of all, the Korean War was conventional warfare with an actual front (the DMZ), not a series of sectarian battles with different ethnic groups and competing interests.

But it's a great model if the goal is to set up a permanent presence in the Middle East to control the flow of the world's oil supply. Which is clearly what this delusional maniac wants to do:

[B]y all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness.

Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated "I am the president!" He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of "our country's destiny."

The entire neocon projects hinges on staying in Iraq forever. The permanent bases had to leave Saudi Arabia, so they had to be relocated to Iraq. The more disruptive our presence is, the more pulling out would trigger a catastrophe, the better these guys feel. And most of the Democratic candidates appear to have bought this, even while sounding antiwar. We are likely to have some kind of troop presence in Iraq for the rest of all of our lifetimes unless some brave politician decides differently.