The Best Salesmanship Yet . . .

. . . of the inevitable Responsible Nonwithdrawal™ product comes from M. Fareed Zakaria, the well known antidemocratic liberal, and he is to commended for labeling his snake oil honestly:

Zakaria: Why We Need a Smaller, Longer Iraq Mission Making clear that we aren't going to disappear entirely will change the calculus of those keeping their 'post-American' options open. / By Fareed Zakaria Sept. 24, 2007 issue - There is a central contradiction in almost every defense of the surge that I have heard or read. More troops and a new counterinsurgency strategy were meant to improve security so that Iraqi politicians could then reconcile. But the most important evidence cited to prove the surge's success shows that the process works the opposite way.

The only little chink in the agitprop here is that it does not altogether appear exactly who "we" are that we should "need" the snake oil prescribed. But let us fast-forward to this nimble agitpropista's bottom line:

Iraq is going to have to find its political balance. The United States might propel Iraqi leaders to do so by relinquishing our dominant security role, scaring them into compromise, just as we and the Sunnis were pushed to make up. In any event, that's something we will have to test, and there is little to be gained from waiting. One point the president made last week was fresh and important. We have strategic, political and moral reasons to remain involved—as long as the Iraqis request it. The most significant way we can help Iraq is to be there for the long haul, assisting it economically and politically, but maintaining a much smaller, more enduring military presence. That is a far more strategic role for U.S. troops than policing the streets of Baghdad. Making clear that we aren't going to disappear entirely will change the calculus of all those groups in Iraq that are keeping their "post-American" options open. The president is wasting his limited political capital buying the surge a few more months. There is a much more important deal to be had here—go down in troop levels, but go long. If you listen to leading Democrats, most recognize the need for a smaller, longer American mission in Iraq. But to get there, President Bush has to recognize that the mission of 130,000 American troops in Iraq—for better or worse—is done.

Rather a curious snake oil, this exotic hate-democracy liberalism of Señorito F. Zakaria! "Our" strategy and policy and morality are all forever to be contingent upon "as long as the [occupied natives] request it," evidently. The frankly thuggish Weekly Standardizer brand of libido dominandi that couldn't care less what [occupied natives] think seems better adapted to the real world to me, Mr. Bones. But what do you think? I solicit your opinion, sir, though I am no militant extremist neo-Zakarian to pretend that everything my own hinges upon your druthers.