Not Obama’s Choice to Make

Sunday 23 October 2011 - Filed under Uncategorized

Obama has been hailed as a peacekeeper president by the media when he announced that we would be withdrawing all of the remaining troops from Iraq by the end of the year. Except there are two snags in his plan. This plan for withdrawal was set in motion no less than 3 years ago by Boosh when it was agreed by both the US and Iraq that all troops would leave the country by the end of 2011, and getting the troops out wasn’t Obama’s choice to make. Via National Journal:

President Obama’s speech formally declaring that the last 43,000 U.S. troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year was designed to mask an unpleasant truth: The troops aren’t being withdrawn because the U.S. wants them out. They’re leaving because the Iraqi government refused to let them stay.

Obama campaigned on ending the war in Iraq but had instead spent the past few months trying to extend it. A 2008 security deal between Washington and Baghdad called for all American forces to leave Iraq by the end of the year, but the White House — anxious about growing Iranian influence and Iraq’s continuing political and security challenges — publicly and privately tried to sell the Iraqis on a troop extension. As recently as last week, the White House was trying to persuade the Iraqis to allow 2,000-3,000 troops to stay beyond the end of the year.

[. . .]

In Washington, many Republican lawmakers had spent recent weeks criticizing Obama for offering to keep a maximum of 3,000 troops in Iraq, far less than the 10,000-15,000 recommended by top American commanders in Iraq. That political point-scoring helped obscure that the choice wasn’t Obama’s to make. It was the Iraqis’, and recent interviews with officials in the country provided vivid evidence of just how unpopular the U.S. military presence there has become — and just how badly the Iraqi political leadership wanted those troops to go home.

Obama’s Iraq remarks glossed over America’s unpopularity in Iraq and his own administration’s failed efforts to sell the Iraqis on a troop extension.

Way to retain some honesty, Obama. You’re doing your best to convince the American people how awesome you are by keeping a “core commitment” to bring the troops home, all while trying to negotiate a way for many of them to stay, “forgetting” the fact that this exact withdrawal plan has been in place for over 3 years and had NOTHING at all to do with you, and conveniently glancing over the idea that the Iraqis are forcing us out and that this wasn’t your choice.

USA! USA! USA!

2011-10-23  »  madlibertarianguy