Perpetual War?

This morning, The New York Times reported Officials Cite Long-Term Need for U.S. in Iraq: “The two top American military and diplomatic officials in Iraq conceded Tuesday that the Bush administration’s overall strategy in Iraq would remain largely unchanged after the temporary increase in American forces is over next summer, and made clear their view that the United States would need a major troop presence in Iraq for years to come. …

“As General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker wound up two days of grueling testimony to the House and Senate, Ms. Pelosi said everything she had heard ‘sounds to me like a 10-year, at least, commitment to an open-ended presence and war….’

“Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, who is one of the party’s leading voices on foreign policy, asked whether the current strategy in Iraq was 'making America safer.' General Petraeus retreated to an explanation that he was doing his best ‘to achieve our objectives in Iraq.’

“But when pressed again, he said: ‘Sir, I don’t know, actually’.”

And then there’s The Next War, as reported by Harper’s Magazine blogger, Scott Horton: “Dr. Dan Plesch and Martin Butcher of the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies look at the signs for an American aerial war on Iran and say the pieces are in place for this to happen imminently. It now only awaits Bush’s command….Read the entire SOAS study here. (PDF)”

Check Steve Clemons’s The Washington Note the next couple of days. Yesterday he posted that he’s working on an article about whether or not we will bomb Iran right now.

(photo: Grow a Brain)