Paul Krugman’s op ed today nails a key link between President Bush’s call to maintain a substantial permanent occupation force in Iraq and the expectations for Iraq’s future on which the occupation is premised. The occupation assumes not only that the surge has failed but that the Iraq national government has failed, and we must hold together a failed state indefinitely.

Last night we heard the President of the United States declare that he would refuse to allow US troops to come home from Iraq until they achieved “success” as he and only he defined success. “Return on success,” he told the troops, adding that “the more successful we are, the more can come home.”Mr.

It has always been the case that the President as Commander-in-Chief can direct American troops to occupy indefinitely another country in which Congress had foolishly and without limit authorized US military intervention. Until Congress withdraws that authorization or places binding limits on how US forces can be deployed, for how long and for what purposes, that will remain true.