Flailing

As the punditry and policy deciders flail around over Iraq, a new CW seems to be emerging .... the 50,000 soldier "residual force" left in Iraq after a drawdown, .... and left there like ... forever. The force would be left to guard American interests in Iraq after we "leave".

Atrios asks a very interesting question about the "residual force":

What drives me nuts about this residual force stuff, aside from how arbitrary it is, is that there's never any thought to exactly what these 50,000 should do. Basically, as the violence rages around them they're supposed to sit there to ensure that... there isn't even more violence raging around them. But it isn't really enough people to actually intervene, especially given that not even close to that many would be combat troops.

Helluvagoodquestion. We can't seem to pacify the country with 200,000 soldiers, what would 50,000 do? This is a stupid idea. It's worked in Germany, Japan, Korea and other nations because there was a political solution in place, not a full fledged civil war in progress. I wonder how it would have worked in, oh say Vietnam, if we had left a military base outside Saigon of around 50,000 troops?

Update: Tony Snow:

President Bush “impressed and reassured by the progress [Iraq is] making on political, security and economic reforms.”

I'll bet.

Update II: Who in the world could have predicted that something like this would happen?

Fred Kagan, the man widely seen as the "architect" of the military surge in Iraq, sees signs of progress but warns that September is too early to make a final decision about how well it has achieved its goals. Instead, in an interview with TIME.com, Kagan recommended waiting until the end of the year before judging the operation's success. Even then, he added, it might be some months before Iraqis make the political compromises necessary to bring lasting stability to the country.

If it wasn't so tragic, the mendacity of these folks would be hilarious. I mean, it's like a little child thinking no one sees him because he has his hands over his eyes. It's also scary because it shows just how clueless most people really are about many of our punditry/thinkers. These guys can be so blatantly transparently hypocritical and totally get away with it.