During the primaries, Obama won over the liberal base of the Democratic Party by trumpeting his long opposition to the war, denying the positive results of the surge, claiming that the war was still a lost cause with no hope of victory, arguing that Iraqis had made no political progress, and sticking to his promise to have all U.S. combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months of his election.
Many pundits from both sides of the political spectrum -- noting that the improving situation on the ground in Iraq made Obama's position and statements seem increasingly outdated and detached from reality -- were predicting that Obama's shift on the issue could come after Obama returns from his long-awaited visit to Iraq later this month.
The theory was that Obama could -- after talking with soldiers and commanders on the ground and seeing progress with his own eyes -- then acknowledge that progress was being made, while using the new positive developments as ever-more reason to draw down U.S. forces, perhaps even taking credit for having "pressured" the administration and the Iraqi government into making the changes that led to success.
But Obama's NYT editorial puts that theory in doubt.
The call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq presents an enormous opportunity. We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated...
Obama then goes on to cite a list of negative developments and consequences -- not the recent gains and reduction in violence -- related to the U.S. efforts in Iraq as reason to begin his "phased redeployment" plan.
He then makes a rather puzzling argument:
In the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge, our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda — greatly weakening its effectiveness.
But the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true. The strain on our military has grown, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated and we've spent nearly $200 billion more in Iraq than we had budgeted. Iraq's leaders have failed to invest tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues in rebuilding their own country, and they have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge.
Funny, that's not why Obama said he opposed the surge when it was being debated back in January 2007.
Obama campaign spokesman David Axelrod, interviewed on May 30, said that "[Obama] never disputed the fact that if you throw a surge of American soldiers in an area that you can make a difference."
But when interviewed about his views on the surge back in January 2007, Obama actually said he opposed it because he didn't believe it would have any success in lowering the level of violence:
"We can send 15,000 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000 more troops: I don't know any expert on the region or any military officer that I've spoken to privately that believes that that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground."
But it most certainly has made a substantial difference on the ground. And on January 10, 2007:
OBAMA: I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse."
Naturally, Obama doesn't mention any of those former positions in the Times op-ed, nor does he point out that his plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq by March 2008 -- which he had advocated as an alternative to the "escalation" of the surge in January 2007 -- would clearly not have allowed any of the "reduction in violence" or "rejection of al-Qaeda" to occur. The war would have been lost four months ago and the Iraqi government would have collapsed, leaving another failed state and al-Qaeda safe haven -- the exact situation Obama decries in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater.
Obama then goes on to repeat his 16-month plan for the withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraq. But ABC News spoke with commanders on the ground in Iraq that said Obama's plan was a "logistical nightmare" -- such a withdrawal could only take place in that time frame if U.S. forces left all their equipment behind.
The military has been redeploying troops for years, and Maj. Gen. Charles Anderson, who would help with the withdrawal, told us as we toured Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, "We have the capacity to do a minimum of two-and-a-half brigade combat teams a month -- can we expand that capacity? Sure. Can we accelerate? It depends. It depends on the amount of equipment that we bring back. And it's going to depend on how fast we bring them out."
It is the equipment that is the real problem.
In the kind of redeployment that Anderson is talking about, the troops head home, but much of their equipment stays behind. Two combat brigades means up to 1,200 humvees in addition to thousands of other pieces of equipment, like trucks, fuelers, tankers and helicopters.
And 90 percent of the equipment would have to be moved by ground through the Iraqi war zone, to the port in Kuwait, where it must all be cleaned and inspected and prepared for shipment. This is a place with frequent dust storms, limited port facilities and limited numbers of wash racks.
While Anderson and his troops have a positive attitude, several commanders who looked at the Obama plan told ABC News, on background, that there was "no way" it could work logistically.
In addition, Obama describes his vision to keep a small, "residual" contingent of American forces in Iraq to perform "limited missions":
After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces.
But even left-leaning anti-war voices like Juan Cole and TMV's Jazz Shaw disagree with this section of Obama's plan, describing it as a pointless half-measure. Juan Cole:
That suggestion is not plausible for several reasons. If there is only a small force in the country, who will rescue them if their helicopter gets shot down or they are ambushed and besieged? Then, how would a small American unit be any good against a terrorist organization operating in remote parts of Sunni Iraq? They don't know Arabic, can't hope for really good intelligence from locals, etc. Wouldn't it be more efficient to let the Special Police Commandos of the Iraqi Interior Ministry take care of this sort of thing?
Jazz Shaw agrees that "the way to get out of Iraq is to get out of Iraq." I think there's some validity to the argument that with Iraq, it's either all or nothing -- either you're in, and committed 100% to victory, or you declare it a lost cause and get out.
If you think Iraq is a failed mission and our continued presence there is counterproductive, then such a force is counter-productive.
If you actually are committed to victory in Iraq, there's little point in rapidly withdrawing combat troops but keeping a "residual force" in Iraq (How big would this force be? Obama doesn't say.) to "go after remnants of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia," "protect American servicemembers" (that one doesn't even make sense to me, if the rest of them have already been pulled out anyway), and "train Iraqi security forces" -- that's not a serious effort.
My biggest problem with Obama's op-ed is the fact that he's still couching all his rhetoric in the "2006 narrative" -- terms of despair and defeat, of Iraq as the "lost cause." His withdrawal plan is still framed around the conclusion that Iraq is a hopeless disaster from which we need to extricate ourselves as quickly as possible. No mention, acknowledgement, or consideration of any positive gains in Iraq, or how we make those gains sustainable, is allowed. Jennifer Rubin sums up my feelings well:
However, what we don’t hear, and I am beginning to wonder if we will, is any recognition from the Obama that we need to build upon the success of the surge and not allow Iraq to drift back into chaos. From his op-ed in the New York Times the answer appears to be “no.” Notice how he shies from any causal connection between the surge and gains we have achieved: “the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda.” And why was that? Could it be because the U.S. troops gave them confidence that we would remain and fight to defend the population? And his timetable of 16 months, a little squishier, seems to be in place. (And if his plan is dangerous, as commanders keep telling the media, does that matter?) In his world, Maliki hasn’t gotten his act together, nor does Obama recognize that Al Qaeda is in fact suffering a momentous defeat right there in Iraq.
One last point: Obama's editorial starts off with, and is largely based around, the claim that Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki publicly called for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Two problems:
First, Obama is ostensibly going to Iraq later this month in order to "listen to commanders on the ground" and ensure that the withdrawal of troops is "careful" and takes into account the current situation.
But as Tom Brokaw pointed out when interviewing Obama backer Sen. Claire McCaskill on Meet the Press:
MR. BROKAW: But, let me be clear about this, he says he’ll listen to commanders on the ground. He’s going there. But before he goes there, he says, “The day after I’m inaugurated, I’ll have Joint Chiefs in the office with instructions to get them out in 16 months.”
SEN. McCASKILL: But…
MR. BROKAW: So the real question is why even go if you know that you want to do that in advance?
SEN. McCASKILL: Well, of course. He, he has a goal of 16 months, but obviously, the most important thing in getting out…
MR. BROKAW: But that could stretch.
SEN. McCASKILL: …is to do it carefully. It–I mean, obviously, a goal is a goal, and he’s been very clear that that’s a goal. He’s been very clear that he wants to be careful and reasonable about the way–in fact, his phrase is, “I want to be the opposite of what we were when we went in. We were reckless and careless when we went in. We didn’t plan.” And by the way, there is–talk about a shifting position, I mean, John McCain used to be very positive about George Bush’s leadership in Iraq.
...
MR. BROKAW: But for–just so that we can clarify, the 16 months is his goal, not a promise to the American people?
SEN. McCASKILL: Sixteen months is his goal. It would be irresponsible for a commander in chief to set in stone a date. But he believes, based on the best of military advice that he has gotten, that one to two brigades a month is reasonable. And I believe that that is his commitment to the American people, and he will keep that commitment to the American people.
Is 16 months now a "goal"? Or is it a "commitment"? What about the "promise" it was during the primaries? The use of shifting, nebulous semantics makes it almost impossible to conclusively pin down Obama's actual position here.
The second problem with Obama quoting Maliki's statement about a "timetable," as the BBC points out, is that Maliki never actually said that. That's hardly Obama's fault, of course -- Maliki's own office put out a press release that misquoted him, and the story was then repeated by major news outlets around the world.
Iraqi National Security Advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie tried to clarify, saying that
...talks were focused on agreeing on "timeline horizons, not specific dates", and said that withdrawal timings would depend on the readiness of the Iraqi security forces.
But that, of course, sounds oddly similar to another candidate's position.
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