Boy, Senator McConnell really likes his outdated arguments about Iraq. First, he revived "flypaper", about three years after everyone else realized it was ridiculous. Now he's harping about the "Korea model" as a projection for our future in Iraq. Hasn't he heard that President Bush moved on to the "Vietnam model?" The "Korea model" was introduced a few months ago, met gales of laughter, and was quickly dropped by the Republicans. Apparently Senator McConnell didn't get the memo.

Senator McConnell revived the analogy yesterday to 150 people at a luncheon in Berea. 60 people protested outside, and Jim Pence caught them on video. There doesn't appear to be a transcript of the Senator's remarks, but reporter Bill Robinson described them in the Richmond Register:

Avoiding the issue of a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops, which even some his fellow Republican senators have begun to support, McConnell compared his Middle East proposal to the stationing of U.S. troops in South Korea after an armistice ended the Korean conflict in 1953.

Because of the U.S. troops there, South Korea has become a stable country with a democratic government and a capitalist economy, McConnell said.

This is not a new argument. The AP reported on May 30th:

President Bush envisions a long-term U.S. troop presence in Iraq similar to the one in South Korea where American forces have helped keep an uneasy peace for more than 50 years, the White House said Wednesday.

The analogy didn't make any sense, but it revealed the administration's belief that we should have troops in Iraq for generations. On the analogy's inaptness, Fred Kaplan explained in Slate:

To sum up, we intervened in South Korea as a response to an invasion and as part of a broad strategy to contain Communist aggression. We intervened in Iraq as the instigator of an invasion and as part of a broad strategy to expand unilateral American power. We remained in South Korea to protect a solid (if, for many years, authoritarian) government from another border incursion. We are remaining in Iraq to bolster a flimsy government and stave off a violent social implosion.

In other words, in no meaningful way are these two wars, or these two countries, remotely similar. In no way does one experience, or set of lessons, shed light on the other. In Iraq, no border divides friend from foe; no clear concept defines who is friend and foe. To say that Iraq might follow "a Korean model"—if the word model means anything—is absurd.

Retired Lt. Gen. Don Kerrick said that "it's a gross over-simplification to reassure people that we have a longer-term plan...Clearly there was no insurgency or terrorism going on in South Korea...There was a clear line between North and South Korea; the United States was really there as a trip-wire to protect South Korea. It's completely different in Iraq. As we know there is no line. The analogy just doesn't cut in this set of circumstances."

Reitred Brig. Gen. John Jones called the analogy "'blatant PR' that can't be taken seriously. 'It's an umbrella for staying the course.'"

Surge-supporter Michael O'Hanlon thought the analogy would increase anti-American sentiment in Iraq:

Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at Brookings Institution, said Snow's comparison of Iraq and South Korea would hurt efforts to convince Iraqis and others that the United States does not plan an indefinite military stay.

"In trying to convey resolve, he conveys the presumption that we're going to be there for a long time," O'Hanlon said. "It's unhelpful to handling the politics of our presence in Iraq."

Even Mitt Romney disagreed:

"Our objective would not be a Korea-type setting with 25-50,000 troops on a near permanent basis remaining in bases in Iraq," the former Massachusetts governor told the Associated Press.

"I think we would hope to turn Iraq security over to their own military and their own security forces, and if presence in the region is important for us than we have other options that are nearby," Romney said in a wide-ranging, hourlong interview with AP reporters and editors.

At minimum, Kentucky deserves a Senator that keeps up to date with his party's propaganda.