IRAQI INTERRUPTUS….Josh Marshall and Matt Yglesias are both pointing to a Washington Post story today suggesting that certain “senior officials” in the Bush administration are pushing to get out of Iraq quickly while others want to stick around for a while. By itself, that’s not really surprising, but what is surprising is this paragraph:
Such hedging is likely to exacerbate differences between the minimalist camp and some State Department officials, who still believe the United States should set its sights on spending whatever time it takes to create a true, pluralistic democracy with a thriving, entrepreneurial economy.
In the past, this dispute has always been between the hawkish neocons (Cheney/Rumsfeld) and the dovish multilateralists (Powell), and we all know that the neocon vision calls for a long occupation of Iraq in order to kick off their famous tidal wave of Mideast democracy.
So if Cheney and Rumsfeld, as good neocons, want to stick around, and State and Treasury want to stick around, who is that wants to get out?
The article suggests that part of the resistance comes from military leaders, who don’t go along with their boss on this and really don’t want to be part of a long term peacekeeping force. But they don’t have much say in this.
No, there’s really only one other constituency who matters: Karl Rove. He isn’t a neocon, and he doesn’t really care about foreign policy much. He just wants to get a big tax cut and win the next election. I imagine that Mitch Daniels is on his side too.
So how much clout does Rove have when it comes to Iraq policy? It looks like we’re about to find out.
