Obama and Iraq

So… Senator Obama publishes his “Plan for Iraq” as an op-ed in today’s New York Times. And, as might be expected, the ‘sphere erupts in comment. Here's some of the best I’ve read in this space today, beginning with Uncle Jimbo, writing at Blackfive:

(Ed: Quoting Obama’s Op-ed)

But this is not a strategy for success — it is a strategy for staying that runs contrary to the will of the Iraqi people, the American people and the security interests of the United States. That is why, on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war.

And there you show why you are unfit to be Commander in Chief. You don't even understand the fundamental concept of war and you would give the military a mission that doesn't exist. You want them to "end" the war which to you means simply pack up our toys and come home so your kids don't have to see those awful stories on the news. Well let me make one thing perfectly clear to you Senator. You can't end wars, you either win them or lose them. Your shameful naivete would endanger the lives of every military member worldwide. Once oue enemies know we have a clueless muppet at the helm, they will be empowered to act without fear of retribution.

Hmm. That sounds a lil bit familiar, nu?

And then Captain Pete Hegseth, who served in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division from 2005 to 2006, and is the executive director of Vets for Freedom, weighs in at National Review Online:

As someone who monitors the Iraq-war-policy debate closely, I was puzzled to open the New York Times and see an oped authored by Sen. Barack Obama entitled “My Plan for Iraq.” Besides the seemingly moderate tone — and calling for an Afghanistan “surge” (an idea I agree, and one proposed by Sen. Joe Lieberman in March) — not much in the piece is new or newsworthy. In the final analysis, the oped is another dogmatic addendum to Obama’s “withdrawal at any cost” position.

In fact, just one question entered my head when I finished reading: Why now? Why would Sen. Obama — or any legislator, for that matter — write such a piece before visiting the country for himself, seeing the situation with his own eyes, and speaking with commanders and troops who actually know what’s going on?

It strikes me that only someone who is signaling no interest in consulting with commanders on the ground would spell out his “plan” for Iraq just one week before he visits the country for the first time in 918 days. Only someone who is arrogant enough to believe he always knows best would outline his Iraq policy before once meeting one-on-one with General David Petraeus.

The only conceivable answer to the question is that Sen. Obama believes he can capitalize on Prime Minister Maliki’s recent comments about a timeline for U.S. withdrawal. Maliki’s comments, important primarily because they demonstrate increased Iraqi strength and confidence, have been diluted by the fact that he didn’t actually call for a timeline after all. All withdrawal talks will be tied to conditions on the ground.

Yeah, the timing is strange, innit? Obama is going to Iraq this week, so why release an op-ed today, which amounts to nothing more than the “same ol’, same ol’”? Why not wait until next week… a mere eight or ten days… when the op-ed could have included the words “I’ve just returned from Iraq, where I consulted with General Petraeus and other commanders on the ground…”? Is there more here than meets the eye? Is this op-ed a way for Obama to re-focus the nutroots after his FISA vote? Or, are they (the Obama camp) just totally confused? Dean Barnett, writing in The Weekly Standard’s “The Blog:”

On Iraq, Team Obama has become stuck in a quagmire of confusion. On Meet the Press yesterday, leading Obama surrogate Claire McCaskill said that Obama’s 16 month surrender plan in Iraq is a “goal” and added it would be “irresponsible for a commander-in-chief to set a date in stone.”

And yet today, the titular head of Team Obama took to the pages of New York Times and declared:

We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. 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. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.

That sounds sort of “set in stone” to me. Meanwhile Obama is trotting off to Iraq this week with “Republican” Chuck Hagel in tow to lend the voyage some military bona fides. Hagel’s the guy who long ago called the surge, “The most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam." Then again, I guess Hagel still makes a far more credible traveling companion than Harry Reid would.

And what’s the purpose of this trip? Ostensibly to talk to the commanders so Obama can further refine his plan which isn’t set in stone. Unless you like it as is, in which case you may consider it set in stone. Until further notice.

There’s much more in the “Required Reading” entry linked above, including some comment on that Barry – Michelle New Yorker cover that’s causing a lot of buzz elsewhere today. Even though it’s off-topic for this post, I liked the following:

It (ed: the cover) doesn’t mock the Obamas – it mocks idiots who see the Obamas as the type of people who burn the American flag in their study while engaging in a terrorist fist-bump.

Not everyone has gotten the joke. My favorite reaction to date has come from Pandagon.net, the blogging home of Amanda Marcotte, the Edwards campaign’s controversial blogger that you may remember from last year. Pandagon is home to perhaps the shrillest version of feminism on the web, and yet the site’s Jesse Taylor responded to the cartoon with a lecture on humor. “The hallmark of good satire,” Taylor scolds, “is that it’s good enough to perhaps be taken credulously by those who aren’t too swift, but also ridiculous enough to show that whoever does take it seriously is a bit slow in the head. This is not good satire.” Strident and perennially outraged feminists posing as the arbiters of good humor? Take it from one who knows – if those comments were themselves intended as satire, they would be the equivalent of satire gold.

Going even further a field… Barnett’s comment about the oxymoron-ish nature of “feminist humor” struck me as particularly observant, if not unique. There are NO more humorless people on the face of God’s Green Earth than supposedly “radical” feminists. OTOH, Barnett makes a pretty convincing case that BHO is just as humorless. And that’s not a Good Thing in a leader, Gentle Reader. Particularly one who aspires to leading the entire Free World.

So… we end with a massive digression, eh? But… if you’re in need of more and better comment on The Obamanon and his “Iraq Plan,” there’s all these guys (via memeorandum, some of which already linked above):

Firedoglake, MoJoBlog, The Carpetbagger Report, Washington Post, The Swamp, The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, The New Republic, Marc Ambinder, USA Today, Informed Comment, The Trail, The Moderate Voice, MSNBC, Taylor Marsh, TownHall Blog, Comedy Central, Think Progress, Newshoggers.com, Weekly Standard Blog, TalkLeft, Political Radar, Swampland, democracyarsenal.org, The Reaction, Pajamas Media, Commentary, Matthew Yglesias, The Corner, Hot Air, Riehl World View, Booman Tribune, All Spin Zone, protein wisdom, The Glittering Eye, Needlenose, BLACKFIVE, Democrats.com, The Strata-Sphere, Veterans For America, MyDD, GregsOpinion.com, The Washington Note, Gateway Pundit, Confederate Yankee and Political Machine

That ought to hold ya for an hour or ten.

A Few Good Links...

There’s more comment than you could possibly stand on memeorandum today about yesterday’s Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment. I think Althouse and Volokh (and Volokh, again) have the best takes, but your mileage most certainly may vary. Pick and choose, at your leisure.

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The best thing I’ve read today… so far: “Cheer up. We're winning this War on Terror; Al-Qaeda and the Taleban are in retreat, the surge has worked in Iraq and Islamism is discredited. Not a bad haul.” That’s the title to a piece by Gerard Baker in today’s Times (UK). Mr. Baker’s lead grafs:

"My centre is giving way. My right is in retreat. Situation excellent. I shall attack!”

If only our political leaders and opinion-formers displayed even a hint of the defiant resilience that carried Marshal Foch to victory at the Battle of the Marne. But these days timorous defeatism is on the march. In Britain setbacks in the Afghan war are greeted as harbingers of inevitable defeat. In America, large swaths of the political class continues to insist Iraq is a lost cause. The consensus in much of the West is that the War on Terror is unwinnable.

And yet the evidence is now overwhelming that on all fronts, despite inevitable losses from time to time, it is we who are advancing and the enemy who is in retreat. The current mood on both sides of the Atlantic, in fact, represents a kind of curious inversion of the great French soldier's dictum: “Success against the Taleban. Enemy giving way in Iraq. Al-Qaeda on the run. Situation dire. Let's retreat!”

Since it is remarkable how pervasive this pessimism is, it's worth recapping what has been achieved in the past few years.

And the recap is good. Most EIP readers will nod their heads north and south while reading this piece because we know the things Mr. Baker enumerates are true, particularly this:

The second great advance in the War on Terror has been in Iraq. There's no need to recapitulate the disasters of the US-led war from the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003 to his execution at the end of 2006. We may never fully make up for three and a half lost years of hubris and incompetence but in the last 18 months the change has been startling.

The “surge”, despite all the doubts and derision at the time, has been a triumph of US military planning and execution. Political progress was slower in coming but is now evident too. The Iraqi leadership has shown great courage and dispatch in extirpating extremists and a growing willingness even to turn on Shia militias. Basra is more peaceful and safer than it has been since before the British moved in. Despite setbacks such as yesterday's bombings, the streets of Iraq's cities are calmer and safer than they have been in years. Seventy companies have bid for oil contracts from the Iraqi Government. There are signs of a real political reconciliation that may reach fruition in the election later this year.

I find it oh-so-interesting that The Obamanon is still running on a platform that highlights “ending the war.” He also refuses to acknowledge the progress that’s been made during the past 15 ~ 18 months and continues to focus on “George Bush’s failed policies.” Obama might be correct if he’s speaking of the earlier missteps and outright bad decisions made by the administration during the war’s early days and those decisions, viewed with the luxury and clarity of hindsight, really DO look abysmal. But that was then, this is NOW. The president changed his strategy and the results speak for themselves, as Mr. Baker and many others have noted. Except for those on the Left, who would rather change the subject at this point in time. As far as I can tell, Obama and his supporters still think withdrawal and defeat are our best options.

This, of course, is yet another reason NOT to vote for The Obamanon… unless you really believe it’s in the best interests of the United States of America to concede the war in Iraq to al Qaeda. I don’t. And I don’t believe the majority of Americans do, either.

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Remember that “show us your workspace” meme? Well… you just gotta go see Morgan’s place o’ bidness, Gentle Reader. Waaay-cool, it is.

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Today’s Pic: An F-101 Voodoo interceptor, sitting quietly on the grounds of the Air Force Armament Museum at Eglin AFB in the Florida Panhandle. I had a “close encounter” with an F-101 back in the day… an encounter that left me jes a lil bit wobbly in the knees. I was lucky I didn’t have to go home and change my pants, actually.

(First-generation digital pic taken in November of 1999. The usual, customary, and reasonable disclaimers about quality apply.)