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Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Obama's slippery answers and the war in Iraq

Regarding Obama's tendency to combine the resistance shown by Iraqis in Anbar with the surge to make it seem that the surge was tangential to the real reasons for the changes in Iraq and that the major credit goes to "the political factors" and not our military efforts, he does indeed seem to be betraying either his ignorance of this recent history or his willful manipulation of the facts to excuse his own poor judgment about the surge's chances for success.

Andrew McCarthy links to this post by Steve Schippert, a former Marine, that responds to Obama's slippery use of the facts.
In an interview on ABC World News Tonight last night (Partial transcript here,...), Senator Obama said that, even knowing what he knows now, he would not support ‘The Surge’ if he had it do do over again. No matter our success, shared among Iraqis and American troops. In order to shore his position, he cheapens the Anbar Salvation Council (as it was known in September 2006, perhaps long before the senator knew who they were) as a mere “political factor.”
I think that, I did not anticipate, and I think that this is a fair characterization, the convergence of not only the surge but the Sunni awakening in which a whole host of Sunni tribal leaders decided that they had had enough with Al Qaeda, in the Shii’a community the militias standing down to some degrees. So what you had is a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops. Had those political factors not occurred, I think that my assessment would have been correct.
Of course he didn’t anticipate it. He probably had no idea who they were and is still demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of counterinsurgency.

I would remind the candidate that the Anbar Salvation Council (which later grew exponentially and developed into al-Sahwa al-Iraq - the Iraq Awakening) started with one man, Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu al-Risha, and seventy men fighting al-Qaeda in defense of their families, not in pursuit of a ‘political’ anything. They simply wanted to live and end al-Qaeda’s assassination and murdering spree against their families and tribe. Sheikh Abdul Sattar, later assassinated by al-Qaeda in Iraq, had seen 10 family members, including 4 brothers, killed by al-Qaeda for their cooperation with US forces. He had had enough.

Obama’s plan - unoriginal and pieced together like a quilt from others against the Iraq war - was entirely Baghdad-centric, about laws and revenue sharing and conferences. The Anbar Awakening had nothing to do with Baghdad when they began and when they turned the neighborhood tides in Ramadi and elsewhere in Anbar province. It was about killing the terrorists before the terrorists killed them. One must, after all, live to ultimately see progress on any scale beyond one’s neighborhoods.

Obama wanted laws written, press conferences, and an immediate pull back of US troops. As Senator Chuck Schumer so brilliantly said at the time about ‘the plan,’ US forces were to withdraw post-haste to the periphery “in more of a counterterrorism role.” This would have abandoned the Anbar Salvation Council - and Anbar Sunnis and Shi’a alike - entirely. It would have been feeding them to the bloodthirsty wolves of al-Qaeda so that domestic American political figures could champion themselves as ‘ending a war’ and conducting business “in more of a counterterrorism role.”

This is precisely what I tried to scream when I wrote “This Is Counterterrorism, Senator” over a year ago for National Review Online. And winning the counterinsurgency is about aligning a population with us. Neither of these, counterterrorism nor counterinsurgency, could have been successfully addressed by ‘The Plan’ put forth by Obama and others in opposition to The Surge. The Surge was all about protecting the population within their own neighborhoods, while ‘The Plan’ was about abandoning said population to complete animals unassisted. Yet Obama - and surely others - would oppose it all over again.
This is why I cannot share Joe Klein's outrage over McCain saying that Obama would rather lose a war to win an election. What would Obama's preferred strategy have been last year but a way to lose Iraq? The only doubt is whether this was Obama's sincere belief of what was better or what he thought was more politically advantageous as he was running in Democratic primaries and caucuses.

The Washington Post editorial page, which has been harsh on Obama's Iraq positions, continues to chastise him. Today they point out the discrepancies between what Obama is saying he'll do and his supposed respect and attention that he'd pay for the advice from the commanders on the ground.
THE INITIAL MEDIA coverage of Barack Obama's visit to Iraq suggested that the Democratic candidate found agreement with his plan to withdraw all U.S. combat forces on a 16-month timetable. So it seems worthwhile to point out that, by Mr. Obama's own account, neither U.S. commanders nor Iraq's principal political leaders actually support his strategy.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the architect of the dramatic turnaround in U.S. fortunes, "does not want a timetable," Mr. Obama reported with welcome candor during a news conference yesterday. In an interview with ABC, he explained that "there are deep concerns about . . . a timetable that doesn't take into account what [American commanders] anticipate might be some sort of change in conditions."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has a history of tailoring his public statements for political purposes, made headlines by saying he would support a withdrawal of American forces by 2010. But an Iraqi government statement made clear that Mr. Maliki's timetable would extend at least seven months beyond Mr. Obama's. More significant, it would be "a timetable which Iraqis set" -- not the Washington-imposed schedule that Mr. Obama has in mind. It would also be conditioned on the readiness of Iraqi forces, the same linkage that Gen. Petraeus seeks. As Mr. Obama put it, Mr. Maliki "wants some flexibility in terms of how that's carried out."

Other Iraqi leaders were more directly critical. As Mr. Obama acknowledged, Sunni leaders in Anbar province told him that American troops are essential to maintaining the peace among Iraq's rival sects and said they were worried about a rapid drawdown.

Mr. Obama's response is that, as president, he would have to weigh Iraq's needs against those of Afghanistan and the U.S. economy. He says that because Iraq is "a distraction" from more important problems, U.S. resources devoted to it must be curtailed. Yet he also says his aim is to "succeed in leaving Iraq to a sovereign government that can take responsibility for its own future." What if Gen. Petraeus and Iraqi leaders are right that this goal is not consistent with a 16-month timetable? Will Iraq be written off because Mr. Obama does not consider it important enough -- or will the strategy be altered?

Arguably, Mr. Obama has given himself the flexibility to adopt either course. Yesterday he denied being "so rigid and stubborn that I ignore anything that happens during the course of the 16 months," though this would be more reassuring if Mr. Obama were not rigidly and stubbornly maintaining his opposition to the successful "surge" of the past 16 months. He also pointed out that he had "deliberately avoided providing a particular number" for the residual force of Americans he says would be left behind.
Obama likes to brag that he has the big picture in mind instead of just worrying about Iraq, a comment that is quite insulting to General Petraeus, head of Central Command, by implying that the General is not doing his job in being concerned about the entire region under his command. Well, if we had followed his advice about not supporting the surge last year and Iraq had descended into more and more terrorism and anarchy, wouldn't that have heartened the militants fighting coming into Afghanistan from Pakistan? If Obama is such a big picture guy, does he see the connections between failure in Iraq and terrorism elsewhere?
Labels: Iraq, Obama

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:28 AM 0 comments

Comments:

Regarding Obama's tendency to combine the resistance shown by Iraqis in Anbar with the surge to make it seem that the surge was tangential to the real reasons for the changes in Iraq and that the major credit goes to "the political factors" and not our military efforts, he does indeed seem to be betraying either his ignorance of this recent history or his willful manipulation of the facts to excuse his own poor judgment about the surge's chances for success.

Andrew McCarthy links to this post by Steve Schippert, a former Marine, that responds to Obama's slippery use of the facts.

In an interview on ABC World News Tonight last night (Partial transcript here,...), Senator Obama said that, even knowing what he knows now, he would not support ‘The Surge’ if he had it do do over again. No matter our success, shared among Iraqis and American troops. In order to shore his position, he cheapens the Anbar Salvation Council (as it was known in September 2006, perhaps long before the senator knew who they were) as a mere “political factor.”
I think that, I did not anticipate, and I think that this is a fair characterization, the convergence of not only the surge but the Sunni awakening in which a whole host of Sunni tribal leaders decided that they had had enough with Al Qaeda, in the Shii’a community the militias standing down to some degrees. So what you had is a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops. Had those political factors not occurred, I think that my assessment would have been correct.
Of course he didn’t anticipate it. He probably had no idea who they were and is still demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of counterinsurgency.

I would remind the candidate that the Anbar Salvation Council (which later grew exponentially and developed into al-Sahwa al-Iraq - the Iraq Awakening) started with one man, Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu al-Risha, and seventy men fighting al-Qaeda in defense of their families, not in pursuit of a ‘political’ anything. They simply wanted to live and end al-Qaeda’s assassination and murdering spree against their families and tribe. Sheikh Abdul Sattar, later assassinated by al-Qaeda in Iraq, had seen 10 family members, including 4 brothers, killed by al-Qaeda for their cooperation with US forces. He had had enough.

Obama’s plan - unoriginal and pieced together like a quilt from others against the Iraq war - was entirely Baghdad-centric, about laws and revenue sharing and conferences. The Anbar Awakening had nothing to do with Baghdad when they began and when they turned the neighborhood tides in Ramadi and elsewhere in Anbar province. It was about killing the terrorists before the terrorists killed them. One must, after all, live to ultimately see progress on any scale beyond one’s neighborhoods.

Obama wanted laws written, press conferences, and an immediate pull back of US troops. As Senator Chuck Schumer so brilliantly said at the time about ‘the plan,’ US forces were to withdraw post-haste to the periphery “in more of a counterterrorism role.” This would have abandoned the Anbar Salvation Council - and Anbar Sunnis and Shi’a alike - entirely. It would have been feeding them to the bloodthirsty wolves of al-Qaeda so that domestic American political figures could champion themselves as ‘ending a war’ and conducting business “in more of a counterterrorism role.”

This is precisely what I tried to scream when I wrote “This Is Counterterrorism, Senator” over a year ago for National Review Online. And winning the counterinsurgency is about aligning a population with us. Neither of these, counterterrorism nor counterinsurgency, could have been successfully addressed by ‘The Plan’ put forth by Obama and others in opposition to The Surge. The Surge was all about protecting the population within their own neighborhoods, while ‘The Plan’ was about abandoning said population to complete animals unassisted. Yet Obama - and surely others - would oppose it all over again.

This is why I cannot share Joe Klein's outrage over McCain saying that Obama would rather lose a war to win an election. What would Obama's preferred strategy have been last year but a way to lose Iraq? The only doubt is whether this was Obama's sincere belief of what was better or what he thought was more politically advantageous as he was running in Democratic primaries and caucuses.

The Washington Post editorial page, which has been harsh on Obama's Iraq positions, continues to chastise him. Today they point out the discrepancies between what Obama is saying he'll do and his supposed respect and attention that he'd pay for the advice from the commanders on the ground.

THE INITIAL MEDIA coverage of Barack Obama's visit to Iraq suggested that the Democratic candidate found agreement with his plan to withdraw all U.S. combat forces on a 16-month timetable. So it seems worthwhile to point out that, by Mr. Obama's own account, neither U.S. commanders nor Iraq's principal political leaders actually support his strategy.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the architect of the dramatic turnaround in U.S. fortunes, "does not want a timetable," Mr. Obama reported with welcome candor during a news conference yesterday. In an interview with ABC, he explained that "there are deep concerns about . . . a timetable that doesn't take into account what [American commanders] anticipate might be some sort of change in conditions."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has a history of tailoring his public statements for political purposes, made headlines by saying he would support a withdrawal of American forces by 2010. But an Iraqi government statement made clear that Mr. Maliki's timetable would extend at least seven months beyond Mr. Obama's. More significant, it would be "a timetable which Iraqis set" -- not the Washington-imposed schedule that Mr. Obama has in mind. It would also be conditioned on the readiness of Iraqi forces, the same linkage that Gen. Petraeus seeks. As Mr. Obama put it, Mr. Maliki "wants some flexibility in terms of how that's carried out."

Other Iraqi leaders were more directly critical. As Mr. Obama acknowledged, Sunni leaders in Anbar province told him that American troops are essential to maintaining the peace among Iraq's rival sects and said they were worried about a rapid drawdown.

Mr. Obama's response is that, as president, he would have to weigh Iraq's needs against those of Afghanistan and the U.S. economy. He says that because Iraq is "a distraction" from more important problems, U.S. resources devoted to it must be curtailed. Yet he also says his aim is to "succeed in leaving Iraq to a sovereign government that can take responsibility for its own future." What if Gen. Petraeus and Iraqi leaders are right that this goal is not consistent with a 16-month timetable? Will Iraq be written off because Mr. Obama does not consider it important enough -- or will the strategy be altered?

Arguably, Mr. Obama has given himself the flexibility to adopt either course. Yesterday he denied being "so rigid and stubborn that I ignore anything that happens during the course of the 16 months," though this would be more reassuring if Mr. Obama were not rigidly and stubbornly maintaining his opposition to the successful "surge" of the past 16 months. He also pointed out that he had "deliberately avoided providing a particular number" for the residual force of Americans he says would be left behind.

Obama likes to brag that he has the big picture in mind instead of just worrying about Iraq, a comment that is quite insulting to General Petraeus, head of Central Command, by implying that the General is not doing his job in being concerned about the entire region under his command. Well, if we had followed his advice about not supporting the surge last year and Iraq had descended into more and more terrorism and anarchy, wouldn't that have heartened the militants fighting coming into Afghanistan from Pakistan? If Obama is such a big picture guy, does he see the connections between failure in Iraq and terrorism elsewhere?

Labels: Iraq, Obama

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:28 AM 0 comments

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Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Obama's slippery answers and the war in Iraq

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HOME Betsy neither necessarily uses, nor endorses, the products advertised on this site. The truth about Avesil Cheap Hosting Atlanta Bankruptcy Attorney Dallas Bankruptcy Attorney Wikio Get exclusive travel deals and book discount cheap flights Online Bachelors Degree Comments from an AP history and government teacher in Raleigh, NC. e-mail betsynewmark AT gmail.com Commissions earned from selling items through Amazon will go towards buying materials for my classes. Thank you. Site Feed		Wednesday, July 23, 2008 Obama's slippery answers and the war in Iraq Regarding Obama's tendency to combine the resistance shown by Iraqis in Anbar with the surge to make it seem that the surge was tangential to the real reasons for the changes in Iraq and that the major credit goes to "the political factors" and not our military efforts, he does indeed seem to be betraying either his ignorance of this recent history or his willful manipulation of the facts to excuse his own poor judgment about the surge's chances for success. Andrew McCarthy links to this post by Steve Schippert, a former Marine, that responds to Obama's slippery use of the facts. In an interview on ABC World News Tonight last night (Partial transcript here,...), Senator Obama said that, even knowing what he knows now, he would not support ‘The Surge’ if he had it do do over again. No matter our success, shared among Iraqis and American troops. In order to shore his position, he cheapens the Anbar Salvation Council (as it was known in September 2006, perhaps long before the senator knew who they were) as a mere “political factor.” I think that, I did not anticipate, and I think that this is a fair characterization, the convergence of not only the surge but the Sunni awakening in which a whole host of Sunni tribal leaders decided that they had had enough with Al Qaeda, in the Shii’a community the militias standing down to some degrees. So what you had is a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops. Had those political factors not occurred, I think that my assessment would have been correct. Of course he didn’t anticipate it. He probably had no idea who they were and is still demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of counterinsurgency. I would remind the candidate that the Anbar Salvation Council (which later grew exponentially and developed into al-Sahwa al-Iraq - the Iraq Awakening) started with one man, Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu al-Risha, and seventy men fighting al-Qaeda in defense of their families, not in pursuit of a ‘political’ anything. They simply wanted to live and end al-Qaeda’s assassination and murdering spree against their families and tribe. Sheikh Abdul Sattar, later assassinated by al-Qaeda in Iraq, had seen 10 family members, including 4 brothers, killed by al-Qaeda for their cooperation with US forces. He had had enough. Obama’s plan - unoriginal and pieced together like a quilt from others against the Iraq war - was entirely Baghdad-centric, about laws and revenue sharing and conferences. The Anbar Awakening had nothing to do with Baghdad when they began and when they turned the neighborhood tides in Ramadi and elsewhere in Anbar province. It was about killing the terrorists before the terrorists killed them. One must, after all, live to ultimately see progress on any scale beyond one’s neighborhoods. Obama wanted laws written, press conferences, and an immediate pull back of US troops. As Senator Chuck Schumer so brilliantly said at the time about ‘the plan,’ US forces were to withdraw post-haste to the periphery “in more of a counterterrorism role.” This would have abandoned the Anbar Salvation Council - and Anbar Sunnis and Shi’a alike - entirely. It would have been feeding them to the bloodthirsty wolves of al-Qaeda so that domestic American political figures could champion themselves as ‘ending a war’ and conducting business “in more of a counterterrorism role.” This is precisely what I tried to scream when I wrote “This Is Counterterrorism, Senator” over a year ago for National Review Online. And winning the counterinsurgency is about aligning a population with us. Neither of these, counterterrorism nor counterinsurgency, could have been successfully addressed by ‘The Plan’ put forth by Obama and others in opposition to The Surge. The Surge was all about protecting the population within their own neighborhoods, while ‘The Plan’ was about abandoning said population to complete animals unassisted. Yet Obama - and surely others - would oppose it all over again. This is why I cannot share Joe Klein's outrage over McCain saying that Obama would rather lose a war to win an election. What would Obama's preferred strategy have been last year but a way to lose Iraq? The only doubt is whether this was Obama's sincere belief of what was better or what he thought was more politically advantageous as he was running in Democratic primaries and caucuses. The Washington Post editorial page, which has been harsh on Obama's Iraq positions, continues to chastise him. Today they point out the discrepancies between what Obama is saying he'll do and his supposed respect and attention that he'd pay for the advice from the commanders on the ground. THE INITIAL MEDIA coverage of Barack Obama's visit to Iraq suggested that the Democratic candidate found agreement with his plan to withdraw all U.S. combat forces on a 16-month timetable. So it seems worthwhile to point out that, by Mr. Obama's own account, neither U.S. commanders nor Iraq's principal political leaders actually support his strategy. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the architect of the dramatic turnaround in U.S. fortunes, "does not want a timetable," Mr. Obama reported with welcome candor during a news conference yesterday. In an interview with ABC, he explained that "there are deep concerns about . . . a timetable that doesn't take into account what [American commanders] anticipate might be some sort of change in conditions." Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has a history of tailoring his public statements for political purposes, made headlines by saying he would support a withdrawal of American forces by 2010. But an Iraqi government statement made clear that Mr. Maliki's timetable would extend at least seven months beyond Mr. Obama's. More significant, it would be "a timetable which Iraqis set" -- not the Washington-imposed schedule that Mr. Obama has in mind. It would also be conditioned on the readiness of Iraqi forces, the same linkage that Gen. Petraeus seeks. As Mr. Obama put it, Mr. Maliki "wants some flexibility in terms of how that's carried out." Other Iraqi leaders were more directly critical. As Mr. Obama acknowledged, Sunni leaders in Anbar province told him that American troops are essential to maintaining the peace among Iraq's rival sects and said they were worried about a rapid drawdown. Mr. Obama's response is that, as president, he would have to weigh Iraq's needs against those of Afghanistan and the U.S. economy. He says that because Iraq is "a distraction" from more important problems, U.S. resources devoted to it must be curtailed. Yet he also says his aim is to "succeed in leaving Iraq to a sovereign government that can take responsibility for its own future." What if Gen. Petraeus and Iraqi leaders are right that this goal is not consistent with a 16-month timetable? Will Iraq be written off because Mr. Obama does not consider it important enough -- or will the strategy be altered? Arguably, Mr. Obama has given himself the flexibility to adopt either course. Yesterday he denied being "so rigid and stubborn that I ignore anything that happens during the course of the 16 months," though this would be more reassuring if Mr. Obama were not rigidly and stubbornly maintaining his opposition to the successful "surge" of the past 16 months. He also pointed out that he had "deliberately avoided providing a particular number" for the residual force of Americans he says would be left behind. Obama likes to brag that he has the big picture in mind instead of just worrying about Iraq, a comment that is quite insulting to General Petraeus, head of Central Command, by implying that the General is not doing his job in being concerned about the entire region under his command. Well, if we had followed his advice about not supporting the surge last year and Iraq had descended into more and more terrorism and anarchy, wouldn't that have heartened the militants fighting coming into Afghanistan from Pakistan? If Obama is such a big picture guy, does he see the connections between failure in Iraq and terrorism elsewhere? Labels: Iraq, Obama posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:28 AM 0 comments Comments: Regarding Obama's tendency to combine the resistance shown by Iraqis in Anbar with the surge to make it seem that the surge was tangential to the real reasons for the changes in Iraq and that the major credit goes to "the political factors" and not our military efforts, he does indeed seem to be betraying either his ignorance of this recent history or his willful manipulation of the facts to excuse his own poor judgment about the surge's chances for success. Andrew McCarthy links to this post by Steve Schippert, a former Marine, that responds to Obama's slippery use of the facts. In an interview on ABC World News Tonight last night (Partial transcript here,...), Senator Obama said that, even knowing what he knows now, he would not support ‘The Surge’ if he had it do do over again. No matter our success, shared among Iraqis and American troops. In order to shore his position, he cheapens the Anbar Salvation Council (as it was known in September 2006, perhaps long before the senator knew who they were) as a mere “political factor.” I think that, I did not anticipate, and I think that this is a fair characterization, the convergence of not only the surge but the Sunni awakening in which a whole host of Sunni tribal leaders decided that they had had enough with Al Qaeda, in the Shii’a community the militias standing down to some degrees. So what you had is a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops. Had those political factors not occurred, I think that my assessment would have been correct. Of course he didn’t anticipate it. He probably had no idea who they were and is still demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of counterinsurgency. I would remind the candidate that the Anbar Salvation Council (which later grew exponentially and developed into al-Sahwa al-Iraq - the Iraq Awakening) started with one man, Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu al-Risha, and seventy men fighting al-Qaeda in defense of their families, not in pursuit of a ‘political’ anything. They simply wanted to live and end al-Qaeda’s assassination and murdering spree against their families and tribe. Sheikh Abdul Sattar, later assassinated by al-Qaeda in Iraq, had seen 10 family members, including 4 brothers, killed by al-Qaeda for their cooperation with US forces. He had had enough. Obama’s plan - unoriginal and pieced together like a quilt from others against the Iraq war - was entirely Baghdad-centric, about laws and revenue sharing and conferences. The Anbar Awakening had nothing to do with Baghdad when they began and when they turned the neighborhood tides in Ramadi and elsewhere in Anbar province. It was about killing the terrorists before the terrorists killed them. One must, after all, live to ultimately see progress on any scale beyond one’s neighborhoods. Obama wanted laws written, press conferences, and an immediate pull back of US troops. As Senator Chuck Schumer so brilliantly said at the time about ‘the plan,’ US forces were to withdraw post-haste to the periphery “in more of a counterterrorism role.” This would have abandoned the Anbar Salvation Council - and Anbar Sunnis and Shi’a alike - entirely. It would have been feeding them to the bloodthirsty wolves of al-Qaeda so that domestic American political figures could champion themselves as ‘ending a war’ and conducting business “in more of a counterterrorism role.” This is precisely what I tried to scream when I wrote “This Is Counterterrorism, Senator” over a year ago for National Review Online. And winning the counterinsurgency is about aligning a population with us. Neither of these, counterterrorism nor counterinsurgency, could have been successfully addressed by ‘The Plan’ put forth by Obama and others in opposition to The Surge. The Surge was all about protecting the population within their own neighborhoods, while ‘The Plan’ was about abandoning said population to complete animals unassisted. Yet Obama - and surely others - would oppose it all over again. This is why I cannot share Joe Klein's outrage over McCain saying that Obama would rather lose a war to win an election. What would Obama's preferred strategy have been last year but a way to lose Iraq? The only doubt is whether this was Obama's sincere belief of what was better or what he thought was more politically advantageous as he was running in Democratic primaries and caucuses. The Washington Post editorial page, which has been harsh on Obama's Iraq positions, continues to chastise him. Today they point out the discrepancies between what Obama is saying he'll do and his supposed respect and attention that he'd pay for the advice from the commanders on the ground. THE INITIAL MEDIA coverage of Barack Obama's visit to Iraq suggested that the Democratic candidate found agreement with his plan to withdraw all U.S. combat forces on a 16-month timetable. So it seems worthwhile to point out that, by Mr. Obama's own account, neither U.S. commanders nor Iraq's principal political leaders actually support his strategy. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the architect of the dramatic turnaround in U.S. fortunes, "does not want a timetable," Mr. Obama reported with welcome candor during a news conference yesterday. In an interview with ABC, he explained that "there are deep concerns about . . . a timetable that doesn't take into account what [American commanders] anticipate might be some sort of change in conditions." Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has a history of tailoring his public statements for political purposes, made headlines by saying he would support a withdrawal of American forces by 2010. But an Iraqi government statement made clear that Mr. Maliki's timetable would extend at least seven months beyond Mr. Obama's. More significant, it would be "a timetable which Iraqis set" -- not the Washington-imposed schedule that Mr. Obama has in mind. It would also be conditioned on the readiness of Iraqi forces, the same linkage that Gen. Petraeus seeks. As Mr. Obama put it, Mr. Maliki "wants some flexibility in terms of how that's carried out." Other Iraqi leaders were more directly critical. As Mr. Obama acknowledged, Sunni leaders in Anbar province told him that American troops are essential to maintaining the peace among Iraq's rival sects and said they were worried about a rapid drawdown. Mr. Obama's response is that, as president, he would have to weigh Iraq's needs against those of Afghanistan and the U.S. economy. He says that because Iraq is "a distraction" from more important problems, U.S. resources devoted to it must be curtailed. Yet he also says his aim is to "succeed in leaving Iraq to a sovereign government that can take responsibility for its own future." What if Gen. Petraeus and Iraqi leaders are right that this goal is not consistent with a 16-month timetable? Will Iraq be written off because Mr. Obama does not consider it important enough -- or will the strategy be altered? Arguably, Mr. Obama has given himself the flexibility to adopt either course. Yesterday he denied being "so rigid and stubborn that I ignore anything that happens during the course of the 16 months," though this would be more reassuring if Mr. Obama were not rigidly and stubbornly maintaining his opposition to the successful "surge" of the past 16 months. He also pointed out that he had "deliberately avoided providing a particular number" for the residual force of Americans he says would be left behind. Obama likes to brag that he has the big picture in mind instead of just worrying about Iraq, a comment that is quite insulting to General Petraeus, head of Central Command, by implying that the General is not doing his job in being concerned about the entire region under his command. Well, if we had followed his advice about not supporting the surge last year and Iraq had descended into more and more terrorism and anarchy, wouldn't that have heartened the militants fighting coming into Afghanistan from Pakistan? If Obama is such a big picture guy, does he see the connections between failure in Iraq and terrorism elsewhere? Labels: Iraq, Obama posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:28 AM 0 comments Comments: Post a Comment