Iraq: The King, the Chickens, and the Permanent Bases
By Jim Fine
The attempt by Rep. Steve King (IA) in mid-May to void legislation banning the U.S. from building permanent military bases in Iraq brings to mind an old Arab parable: Two chickens lay tied up on the chopping block talking. “We’re for it,” the one said, “He’s honing that knife on the sharpening stone.” “Don’t worry,” the other replied, “look at him, he’s crying. He won’t hurt us.” “Would that your words would leap from your beak to the gate of Heaven and be fulfilled,” the first chicken said, “but my father and mother taught me, “Son, always look at their hands, not their eyes.”
FCNL’s chickens had a close call recently. On May 17, the House voted 219 to 209 to reject an amendment to the defense authorization bill that would have undermined legislation banning long-term U.S. military bases in Iraq. Fortunately the ban survived, but not by much. Approval of the amendment would have rendered meaningless the prohibition on permanent bases in Iraq that FCNL’s lobbying won in the 109th Congress and saw reaffirmed in this 110th Congress.
Why is this ban important? The world is listening to what the U.S. is saying but also watches what our hands are doing. The administration and many members of Congress continue to say that the U.S. is not planning a permanent military occupation of Iraq. To reaffirm this point, last year the House voted 376 to 50 to prohibit the building of permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq. But this year many of those same legislators had a change of heart. In the recent vote, 15 Democrats joined 204 Republicans in voting for the amendment offered by Rep. King that said in effect, "OK, you can’t build 'permanent' bases in Iraq, but you can build twenty-year bases or fifty-year bases or whatever other kind of 'impermanent' bases you want."
What were they thinking? General Douglas E. Lute, the administration’s recently appointed overseer of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has said that a key U.S. objective must be to undercut the Iraqi perception that the U.S. is intent on maintaining the occupation of Iraq indefinitely. General Lute is right. The presence of U.S. troops on Iraqi soil fuels violent opposition to the U.S. Passage of the King amendment on impermanent permanent bases would have become another poster child for al-Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgents.
The semantic game would have fooled no one, especially the Iraqis. Arguing, as the amendment did, that there are no “permanent” U.S. bases anywhere in the world would not have mitigated the disaster. Passage of the King amendment would have undone the positive effect of every single vote cast to date in the 110th Congress in favor of a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces.
Iraqis would have taken good note of the lack of permanent U.S. military bases, say, in Europe or the Philippines and would have recalled the old Arab parable and the last words of the first chicken, “Son, always look at their hands, not their eyes.”
