Withdrawal Timeline
Iraqis want our troops out. However, no one was expecting Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to speak up in favor of withdrawal because, he’s close to the Bush administration. But with elections coming up in Iraq and a great majority of Iraqis opposed to our prolonged occupation, Maliki can’t afford to toe Bush’s line. Al- Maliki surprised many, by suggesting a timetable for troop withdrawals and a date to end the war.
As a result, the “endless war agreement” Bush has been pushing fell through. For years hundreds of thousands of Americans have pushed Congress to stand up to Bush’s proposed treaty with Iraq, which would have tied the next President’s hands and made it much harder to get out.
Even the Pentagon is considering faster timelines. Michael Hirsh at Newsweek wrote: “a forthcoming Pentagon-sponsored report will recommend a big drawdown of troops, which suggesting that U.S. forces be reduced to as few as 50,000 by the spring of 2009, down from about 150,000.”
Barack Obama is using these developments to hammer home the point that McCain and Bush are now isolated in their resistance to any kind of timeline for withdrawal. Recently, Obama wrote an Op-Ed in the New York Times that reaffirmed his commitment to a timeline that would have all combat troops out of Iraq in 16 months.
Obama concluded: “Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea. . . For too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender. It’s not going to work this time. It’s time to end this war.”
Furthermore, Barack Obama described the Bush-McCain approach: “George Bush and John McCain don’t have a strategy for success in Iraq—they have a strategy for staying in Iraq. They said we couldn’t leave when violence was up, they say we can’t leave when violence is down. They refuse to press the Iraqis to make tough choices, and they label any timetable to redeploy our troops surrender, even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government—not to a terrorist enemy. Theirs is an endless focus on tactics inside Iraq, with no consideration of our strategy to face threats beyond Iraq’s borders.”
As a result, the “endless war agreement” Bush has been pushing fell through. For years hundreds of thousands of Americans have pushed Congress to stand up to Bush’s proposed treaty with Iraq, which would have tied the next President’s hands and made it much harder to get out.
Even the Pentagon is considering faster timelines. Michael Hirsh at Newsweek wrote: “a forthcoming Pentagon-sponsored report will recommend a big drawdown of troops, which suggesting that U.S. forces be reduced to as few as 50,000 by the spring of 2009, down from about 150,000.”
Barack Obama is using these developments to hammer home the point that McCain and Bush are now isolated in their resistance to any kind of timeline for withdrawal. Recently, Obama wrote an Op-Ed in the New York Times that reaffirmed his commitment to a timeline that would have all combat troops out of Iraq in 16 months.
Obama concluded: “Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea. . . For too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender. It’s not going to work this time. It’s time to end this war.”
Furthermore, Barack Obama described the Bush-McCain approach: “George Bush and John McCain don’t have a strategy for success in Iraq—they have a strategy for staying in Iraq. They said we couldn’t leave when violence was up, they say we can’t leave when violence is down. They refuse to press the Iraqis to make tough choices, and they label any timetable to redeploy our troops surrender, even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government—not to a terrorist enemy. Theirs is an endless focus on tactics inside Iraq, with no consideration of our strategy to face threats beyond Iraq’s borders.”
posted by Jim O'Leary | 12:00 AM
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