Posted 1:56 PM by Gene

Our own curiosity at a fever pitch, we had to go the official campaign site of Lenny Downie's stooge and see what kind of ideas he has. Well, he has ideas (pardon the length):

For more than two years, I’ve been proposing a formula that might lead to the end of our occupation of Iraq. The first step would be for this administration to say unequivocally that our country has no desire to occupy Iraq in the long term. It has not done so. And I am mindful of the many comments by those who pushed so hard for this war to the effect that we should set up a long term “McCarthurian” [SIC!!!!!] Regency in Baghdad. We should say clearly to the people of Iraq and the region that we have no plans for a long term presence in the country. This will take the moral high-ground away from the insurgency in the eyes of the Muslim World, and it will diffuse the concerns of some Iraqis that we plan to stay for good. This will also put the Iraqi government on notice that it must cooperate and bring order to its people. We should not build permanent bases in Iraq. Right now from all reports there are four permanent bases being built there without much discussion among the American public. We don’t need them. If we’re leaving, it sends the wrong message if we’re building them. In the short term, we could move the bulk of our troops home while positioning some units out of the country but within the region; strong possibilities from discussions that I have had with military leaders could be Jordan and Kuwait, until a fuller measure of stability takes hold in the region. And I believe that the Congress should make sure of this by banning any expenditures for permanent bases in Iraq.

The second step would be for us to begin immediate discussions with those countries that are culturally and historically invested in Iraq, and arguably aligned with us, to become overtly involved in the diplomatic solution. They could take responsibility at some level for future stability among Iraq’s competing factions. The countries that immediately come to mind are Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and those sorts of countries. I believe this is doable, but quite frankly it’s going to be more difficult in the wake of our failure to take similar steps during the early stages of the recent incidents [?] in Lebanon. You might recall that during those first days of that action, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain all condemned Hezbollah, as did the Beirut government, initially, for inciting the Israeli attacks. By not taking advantage of these gestures we lost a great opportunity to bring some long term stability in both countries.

TRANSLATION: Cut and walk, and hope the Arabs can keep the peace there. Sure, Jimmy, sure.