New York Times defends military escalation in Iraq

For “some Americans,” the Times editors could more accurately have substituted every leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. The Democratic frontrunners—Senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards—have all made it clear that they would maintain a scaled-down deployment of US troops in Iraq indefinitely for the purposes of “counterterrorism” operations and protecting US strategic interests; i.e., suppressing Iraqi resistance and assuring control of Iraq’s oil wealth by American-based energy conglomerates.

The Times editorial goes on to cite the disintegrating security situation in Basra, where the British have overseen the occupation for the past four years, declaring that the lesson is that “going partway is not a realistic option.”