[Political Junkie Too]

My point is that if McCain or Romney had won the election, the United States and Iraq would have come to new terms of mutual interest regardless of the prior status of forces agreement. Obama had no interest in doing so and couldn't wait to pull out ASAP.

North Korea doesn't seem so old news right now, with their nuclear testing. We are still supporting the DMZ 60 years later.

-PJ

[Alberta's Child]

My point is that if McCain or Romney had won the election, the United States and Iraq would have come to new terms of mutual interest regardless of the prior status of forces agreement. Obama had no interest in doing so and couldn't wait to pull out ASAP.

Maybe so, but timing is everything. If McCain or Romney had won the election there may have been no need to come to "new terms of mutual interest" with Iraq. This agreement was signed by George W. Bush AFTER the 2008 election -- which tells me that the decision to sign it (or not) was predicated on the election results.

I'm sure he -- along with everyone else in the GOP leadership -- saw the election of a jug-eared exchange student from Kenya as a thorough repudiation of the war in Iraq and everything associated with the Bush administration. If Bush didn't sign that agreement in November 2008, Obama would have signed it ten minutes after he was inaugurated in 2009 ... and he would have been very popular among Americans for it.

North Korea doesn't seem so old news right now, with their nuclear testing. We are still supporting the DMZ 60 years later.

South Korea is nothing more than a welfare state of the U.S. As with most countries around the world where the U.S. has maintained a long-term military presence, they are propped up solely as a trading partner. North Korea is surrounded by countries that are perfectly capable of defending themselves. Compare the two Koreas by any measure -- population, GDP, standard of living, etc. -- and it's obvious that the South Koreans don't need us to maintain the DMZ.