Will Obama’s campaign talk on Iraq work on the ground?

[unhappycamper]

Will Obama’s campaign talk on Iraq work on the ground?
By Drew Brown, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Thursday, November 6, 2008

President-elect Barack Obama will face steep challenges turning his campaign promises into ground-truth realities in Iraq, according to experts.

During his nearly two-year campaign for the presidency, Obama talked tough about setting a 16-month deadline for pulling most U.S. combat forces out of Iraq, calling it the "wrong battlefield" and arguing that doing so would allow the United States to shift more soldiers and resources to Afghanistan, which he considers the frontline in the war on terror.

Obama opposed the Iraq war even before he was elected to the Senate in 2004, and has argued that the tight deadline would force the Iraqis to take the necessary steps toward political reconciliation and to assume responsibility for their own security and stability.

"Ending this war will be my first priority when I take office," Obama said in an August 2007 speech at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. "There is no military solution in Iraq. Only Iraq’s leaders can settle the grievances at the heart of Iraq’s civil war. We must apply pressure on them to act, and our best leverage is reducing our troop presence."

Obama made the speech just as the U.S. troop surge in Iraq was hitting its peak. Although he has acknowledged since then that the surge has worked "beyond our wildest dreams," he has continued to assert that the surge has not produced the political reconciliation among Iraqis that was its larger goal.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=58664

[midnight]

1. I think the more important question Americans need to ask is

why are we on the ground over in Iraq? We were told that we had to find WMD, then we were told we had to rescue women from being rapped, then we were told we had to build schools, then we were told we had to provide open elections, then we were told we had to wait until the Iraq govt told us to leave. Let's just bring them home-Now.... I think Americans have to come to terms with the fact that much of the talk that makes up these discussions about Iraq change. The real reason stays constant though-controlling the price of oil.....Surge or no Surge. The real reason never changes......

[unhappycamper]

2. You forgot the the "When they stand up, we'll stand down" bullshit.

Other than that, pretty good list. :thumbsup: