The Neocon Response to Obama's Iraq Decision

It probably shouldn’t be surprising to see the Republican presidential candidates piling on President Obama in the wake of his announcement that all American troops are coming home from Iraq at year’s end, save a few hundred for routine embassy security and the like. After all, they want his job and can’t very well praise his stewardship, even on matters beyond the water’s edge. And given the nature of American politics these days, nobody should be startled at the tone of their rhetoric—Mitt Romney suggesting, for example, that the decision betokened either “naked political calculation” or else “sheer ineptitude in negotiations” (because Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki couldn’t be persuaded to accept an ongoing U.S. troop deployment); and Herman Cain dismissing the decision as “dumb” (this from a man who hasn’t managed to articulate a coherent framework of thought on foreign policy since he emerged as a player in the early nomination maneuverings).

More interesting, though hardly more surprising, is the reaction of the neoconservative commentators. An effort to parse their expressions offers a revealing window on this influential contingent of thought leaders. Max Boot, probably the most stark-minded advocate of U.S. imperialism in post-9/11 America, called the decision “a shameful failure of American foreign policy” because it “risks undoing all the gains” of the American occupation and extended troop deployment. He adds that the Iranian Quds Force “must be licking its chops” at the prospect of a defenseless Iraq in the post-U.S. days ahead.