Tell Iraqis No Permanent Bases, Says Bob Barr

John McCain and Barack Obama are playing a petty game of “gotcha” while Iraqis demonstrate against the Bush administration’s plan to create long-term, if not permanent, bases in Iraq. “The next president should commit to a speedy and complete withdrawal from Iraq,” argues Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party candidate for president, “and tell the Iraqi people that the U.S. troops will be going home.”

It is “no knock against America’s brave fighting men and women to admit that the war and subsequent occupation was a mistake and has been badly mismanaged,” he adds. The next president must undertake the withdrawal which President Bush will not consider. In fact, with violence down “now is the time to accelerate the turnover of full security authority to the Iraq government, since only when we leave will they have an incentive to take the tough steps necessary to meet their nation’s many challenges – military, economic, and political,” explains Barr.

In any case, so long as Washington dominates Iraq, U.S. forces will remain the target of antagonistic groups, militias, and insurgents. America will continue to lose brave men and women and waste billions of dollars—day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. That must end. It has never been America’s purpose to occupy other nations in an effort to remold them, whether Iraq or anywhere else.