After a lot of uncharacteristic pfaffing over the past couple of weeks that left him open to attacks, Barack Obama has an oped in today’s New York Times detailing his intent to end the Iraq war upon taking office in January if he wins.
The main points:
- The Iraqi government we set up is calling our bluff. They want to start taking responsibility for their own security and to set a timetable for the drawdown of US troops. McSame & the Bush Administration want us to stay there indefinitely, with 50 permanent bases, on terms (in their dreamworld) similar to the US presence in South Korea. Taking the Iraqis up on it would be “surrender”, according to McSame.
- Leaving Iraq responsibly means it’s possible to get out by summer 2010.
- a “residual force” (no number of how big that would be) would remain in Iraq to conduct mopup ops on Al Qaeda in Iraq and do further training.
- Freeing up troops is increasingly vital to reverse the increasing gains of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan and NW Pakistan.
This seems like utter sanity to me.
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2 responses so far ↓
1 Jon Ihle // Jul 17, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Yeah, but I want to know about Osama’s plan for leaving Iraq!
2 John // Jul 19, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Is this his final draft? See The Obama Iraq Documentary:Whatever The Politics Demand at
http://www.johnmccain.com/
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