It looks like the permanent basing negotiations with the Iraqis that are I wrote about the other day aren’t going anywhere after all:
The Bush administration is conceding for the first time that the United States may not finish a complex security agreement with Iraq before President Bush leaves office.
Faced with stiff Iraqi opposition, it is “very possible” the U.S. may have to extend an existing U.N. mandate, said a senior administration official close to the talks. That would mean major decisions about how U.S. forces operate in Iraq could be left to the next president, including how much authority the U.S. must give Iraqis over military operations and how quickly the handover takes place.
Leaving a major decision like this up to the next President would seem to be the sensible thing to do. It’s generally not a good idea for an outgoing Administration to tie the hands of it’s successor, especially when we don’t even know who that successor will be at this point.
Here’s an idea — make this a topic of debate between Obama and McCain, and let the American people decide if they want to turn Iraq into the latest outpost in an empire that we really can’t afford.
H/T: Matthew Yglesias
June 10th, 2008 at 10:09 am
> It’s generally not a good idea for an outgoing Administration to tie the hands of it’s successor
No, but it’s exactly the kind of thing we’ve come to expect from Bush & Co.
June 10th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
hopefully Bush will content himself with traveling around the world until we get a new prez….but he’ll need to take Dick Cheney with him….the mischief those two can create (and that’s putting it nicely.)
But then again…they always have someone else paying the bill so they continue to make bad decisions….
buzz…buzz…
June 10th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Personally, I am in favor of a President who travels around the world for their entire term and never comes home