Quagmire Seeking behavior

I've got something a little more literary in the works for Thursday but I am compelled to comment...

The Pentagon has decided to flip-flop on the Iraq withdrawal. There's the standard bullshit about "Oh, what will become of them once we leave? We have to stay to provide stability!" Only the dumbest hominids still think American troops are an actual stabilizing presence in that ravaged desert. And as much as I'd like to include them in that group, the brassholes running things aren't that dumb.

The fears of Iran stepping into the vacuum that will be left in the event of a true and total American withdrawal are well-founded -- and entirely our fault. By removing Sadam Hussein, we removed what had been a counterbalance to Iran's control of the region. This isn't anything as cinematic as some Greater Mesopotamia forming in the wake of the Iraq War but more of a very logical extension of soft power -- the client state of Iraq changing owners.

Now since I don't particularly care for continuing the petrol infrastructure that requires Iraq's oil, I don't care if Iran gets to call the shots. It remains an only regional player whose saber rattling at Israel is just to keep its own hicks ginned up for the Holy Republic instead of wondering what the modern conveniences of plumbing might be like. There just might be people in America writing foreign policy who are full of enough paranoia and self-loathing to consider Iran a genuine threat, but I can tell you from living next to the Great Beast on the Potomac that such creatures are only ever trotted out to reinforce the positions of the dominant jocks.

The Pentagon doesn't want to quit for a very simple and ugly reason: they ain't quitters. Or more accurately, they ain't taking that albatross of strategic defeat around their necks. Because however they may spin the eventual withdrawal, the fact remains that America -- specifically America's generals -- lost the Iraq War. American soldiers will continue to fight and die for West Pointer egos until Obama finds some balls when dealing with his own Defense Department or until the US runs out of desperate cannon fodder whose only options are Wal-Mart or the Army.