Michele Bachmann’s performance as a presidential candidate continues to resemble Andy Kaufman’s career as a wrestler.

On “Face the Nation” Sunday morning, Bachmann declared that Iraq should reimburse the U.S. for the war. Yes, the one the U.S. started. Yes, the one that destabilized their country and killed more than 100,000 civilians.

“I believe that Iraq should reimburse the United States fully for the amount of money that we have spent to liberate these people,” Bachmann said. “They’re not a poor country; they’re a wealthy country.”

Bachmann is also waiting for African-Americans to pay back the U.S. for the travel costs and in-flight entertainment associated with the Middle Passage. I believe Herman Cain has already written a check for his share.

Maybe Bachmann has uncovered the secret to ending the U.S.’s economic woes. The nation’s new chief export can be warfare: The U.S. military will come to your country, blow it to bits, and all for no money down and a reasonable payment plan. You don’t even have to worry about minor details such as when, where, or if you even want this service at all. The U.S. will take care of that. It’s what we like to call the “old surprise visit” a la “A Clockwork Orange.”

According to Bachmann, demanding payment for the Iraq War is for the Iraqis’ benefit, as well:

“I think that they need to do that, because what we will be leaving behind is a nation that is very fragile and will be subject to dominance by Iran and their influence in the region, and that’s not good.”

See, Iraq is already fragile after we slammed it in the kneecaps with our military baseball bat, so we need to stick it with a bill for roughly $700 billion.

Bachmann is currently pushing the “Noble Reason” for the Iraq War — liberating the nation from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. This surfaced after the “Self-Defense Reason” was proven about as legitimate as any part of Heidi Montag.

To review, the “Self-Defense Reason” was that Hussein was either involved in 9/11 or supportive through training or might assist Al-Qaeda or was at a dinner party that one of bin Laden’s wives threw and on and on until everyone in the U.S. was thoroughly confused. This was actually educated and perhaps tactical confusion, as the connection to the facts grew more tenuous in the months immediately after 9/11:

Polling data show that right after Sept. 11, 2001, when Americans were asked open-ended questions about who was behind the attacks, only 3 percent mentioned Iraq or Hussein. But by January of this year, attitudes had been transformed. In a Knight Ridder poll, 44 percent of Americans reported that either “most” or “some” of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqi citizens. The answer is zero.

The intent to save the Iraqi people and “bring freedom to the galaxy” is buried somewhere in the Iraq War Resolution but ultimately the whole invasion was based in U.S. self-interest, which resulted in 4,796 U.S. and Coalition casualties. So, more U.S. citizens died in Iraq than died on 9/11 in an effort to avoid a similar attack on the U.S. that never materialized.

Bachmann and other conservatives are attacking President Obama’s decision to withdraw troops from Iraq. It’s hard to make sense of this: We know for a fact that ending the debacle will save U.S. lives. The Iraqi government gets it. That’s why they graciously want us to leave.

…the Obama administration announced it will withdraw all American troops from Iraq by year-end, at the behest of the Iraqi government. Bachmann said Iraq needs more continued U.S. troop involvement to prevent Iran from gaining influence in the region.

Bachmann called the Iraqi government’s insistence that American forces be removed from the nation “outrageous”…

“That’s the thanks we get after 4,400 lives have been expended?” Bachmann said, referring to the number of American troops who have died in the Iraq war.

The families of U.S. soldiers in Iraq will probably be content with the return of their loved ones from a war zone. They will find a way to do without the handwritten thank-you note and a bottle of wine.

It astounds me that we’d actually discuss staying in Iraq when its government wants us gone. If the situation were reversed, I think we’d be pissed. That’s called an occupying force or, as the U.S. refers to it in its history books, “manifest destiny.”