Well, I am nothing but a damn liberal, but you don’t have to take my word for it that the Republicans are full of shit, because Fred Kaplan, aka Cap’n Fred, aka the thinking-man’s hawk,* thinks so too. Here’s the way Fred tells the story:
“Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and some others have suggested that the sticking point was over a clause giving U.S. troops immunity from Iraqi prosecution for alleged crimes. This is a standard feature of such treaties, including of the earlier arrangement with Iraq. It’s true that the Iraqis refused to grant the immunity. But there was no leeway to negotiate an exemption, because the main sticking point was, and is, that the Iraqis simply do not want American troops in their country anymore. {Fred’s italics] One U.S. official in Iraq said in a phone interview, ‘Even our erstwhile friends [among Iraqi politicians] want us out by the end of the year. None of them lifted a finger to keep us.’”
This really settles the matter, unless we want to declare war on the government we helped install, which, unless you’re Michele Bachmann, sounds like a bad idea. Fred also points out that violence in Iraq is declining. What about Iran? Will its influence increase? Well, it hasn’t, and if it does 1) maybe we should have thought of that before and 2) maybe it will prompt other Middle East nations who are not excited about increased Iranian influence in their neighborhoods to start acting more chummy towards Uncle Sammy.
*Fred thinks so much that he sometimes wonders if we haven’t wasting a lot of time, money, and lives in Afghanistan with, you know, absolutely nothing to show for it, though he’s usually able to drive such awful thoughts away. His thoughtfulness reached a repulsive nadir here, when he discovered a previously unknown distinction between good and bad murders, in the disgraceful case of Anwar al-Awlaki, murdered by the Obama Administration on the grounds that he probably talked too much. For whatever reason, Fred hasn’t taken a position on the murder of Anwar’s son. Perhaps defending that one would require more thought than even Fred is capable of.
