OBAMA BETRAYS GI'S

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-01-2004
OBAMA BETRAYS GI'S
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Mon, 09-15-2008 - 6:16am
OBAMA TRIED TO STALL GIS' IRAQ WITHDRAWAL










 Barack Obama tours Iraq with Gen. David Petraeus in July, when he sought to stall any agreement for US troop withdrawal until President Bush left office.

LONG VIEW: Barack Obama tours Iraq with Gen. David Petraeus in July, when he sought to stall any agreement for US troop withdrawal until President Bush left office.



By AMIR TAHERI


Last updated: 4:10 am
September 15, 2008
Posted: 4:02 am
September 15, 2008


WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.


According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.


"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview.


Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops - and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its "state of weakness and political confusion."


"However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open." Zebari says.


Though Obama claims the US presence is "illegal," he suddenly remembered that Americans troops were in Iraq within the legal framework of a UN mandate. His advice was that, rather than reach an accord with the "weakened Bush administration," Iraq should seek an extension of the UN mandate.


While in Iraq, Obama also tried to persuade the US commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, to suggest a "realistic withdrawal date." They declined.


Obama has made many contradictory statements with regard to Iraq. His latest position is that US combat troops should be out by 2010. Yet his effort to delay an agreement would make that withdrawal deadline impossible to meet.


Supposing he wins, Obama's administration wouldn't be fully operational before February - and naming a new ambassador to Baghdad and forming a new negotiation team might take longer still.


By then, Iraq will be in the throes of its own campaign season. Judging by the past two elections, forming a new coalition government may then take three months. So the Iraqi negotiating team might not be in place until next June.


Then, judging by how long the current talks have taken, restarting the process from scratch would leave the two sides needing at least six months to come up with a draft accord. That puts us at May 2010 for when the draft might be submitted to the Iraqi parliament - which might well need another six months to pass it into law.


Thus, the 2010 deadline fixed by Obama is a meaningless concept, thrown in as a sop to his anti-war base.


Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Bush administration have a more flexible timetable in mind.


According to Zebari, the envisaged time span is two or three years - departure in 2011 or 2012. That would let Iraq hold its next general election, the third since liberation, and resolve a number of domestic political issues.


Even then, the dates mentioned are only "notional," making the timing and the cadence of withdrawal conditional on realities on the ground as appreciated by both sides.


Iraqi leaders are divided over the US election. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani (whose party is a member of the Socialist International) sees Obama as "a man of the Left" - who, once elected, might change his opposition to Iraq's liberation. Indeed, say Talabani's advisers, a President Obama might be tempted to appropriate the victory that America has already won in Iraq by claiming that his intervention transformed failure into success.


Maliki's advisers have persuaded him that Obama will win - but the prime minister worries about the senator's "political debt to the anti-war lobby" - which is determined to transform Iraq into a disaster to prove that toppling Saddam Hussein was "the biggest strategic blunder in US history."


Other prominent Iraqi leaders, such as Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi and Kurdish regional President Massoud Barzani, believe that Sen. John McCain would show "a more realistic approach to Iraqi issues."


Obama has given Iraqis the impression that he doesn't want Iraq to appear anything like a success, let alone a victory, for America. The reason? He fears that the perception of US victory there might revive the Bush Doctrine of "pre-emptive" war - that is, removing a threat before it strikes at America.


Despite some usual equivocations on the subject, Obama rejects pre-emption as a legitimate form of self -defense. To be credible, his foreign-policy philosophy requires Iraq to be seen as a failure, a disaster, a quagmire, a pig with lipstick or any of the other apocalyptic adjectives used by the American defeat industry in the past five years.


Yet Iraq is doing much better than its friends hoped and its enemies feared. The UN mandate will be extended in December, and we may yet get an agreement on the status of forces before President Bush leaves the White House in January.




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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-09-2008
Mon, 09-15-2008 - 7:39am

What's the source of this article ?

If true, Mccain should coast to an easy victory in Nov. due to Obama's hypocrisy & flawed foreign policy ideas.

Avatar for undefeated
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Mon, 09-15-2008 - 7:45am
The source is an opinion piece from the New York Post.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Mon, 09-15-2008 - 7:51am

If true (or believed even if not true) this ought to cost him.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Mon, 09-15-2008 - 8:26am

First, my husband is in the military and said, "don't speak for him or other troops. Are you a member of the military, if so, speak for yourself only, please.



iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Mon, 09-15-2008 - 8:54am
He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview.

Photobucket

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-21-2005
Mon, 09-15-2008 - 9:32am

This is not new news. Here's a months-old article with better sourcing:


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/world/middleeast/03iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


Slapping an inflamatory headline on a story is one of the NY Post's specialties. The Post is really only good for Page Six, which is not saying much.

Caroline
(better signature to go below?)

Caroline

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2001
Mon, 09-15-2008 - 10:17am
It is discouraging that Obama would put his political campaign ahead of doing what is best for the troops.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Mon, 09-15-2008 - 10:59am

he's banking on winning (both are) and if he does win and this works the way he wants it (if the article is in fact factual) then he is the hero who ended this war.


iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Mon, 09-15-2008 - 11:01am
It is discouraging that Obama would put his political campaign ahead of doing what is best for the troops.




iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Mon, 09-15-2008 - 11:13am

This article WITHOUT the original article is written in the same spirit of the McCain campaign. Taken OUT of CONTEXT, the way that dirty McCain camp did about lipstick shows how desperate they are to win. Barack knew that the lying Bush43 administration was trying to lock the next POTUS into an agreement, which would have been fine for the puppet McCain, but not for Barack.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/obama-plans-trip-pre-election-day-visit-to-iraq-and-afghanistan/

Obama Plans Trip Pre-Election Day Visit to Iraq and Afghanistan

FLINT, Mich. – Senator Barack Obama said today he intends to visit Iraq and Afghanistan before the November election.

Mr. Obama, who spoke to the Iraqi foreign minister by telephone this morning, said he was “encouraged” by the reductions in violence in Iraq. But he said the United States still must begin gradually withdrawing troops, at a pace of one to two brigades a month, with a goal of removing most combat troops in 16 months.

“We have no interest in permanent bases in Iraq,” Mr. Obama said. “I gave him an assurance that should we be elected, an Obama administration will make sure that we continue with the progress that’s been made in Iraq – that we won’t act precipitously, but that we will move to end U.S. combat forces in Iraq.”

As Mr. Obama arrived in Michigan for a campaign stop on the economy, he shared details of his morning telephone call with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. On Sunday, Mr. Zebari had a face-to-face meeting with Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Among the issues being discussed with the two presidential candidates is the long-term security accord between Iraq and the United States. While the Bush administration would like to see an agreement reached before the summer’s political conventions, Mr. Obama said today that he opposed such a timetable.

*****************

“My concern is that the Bush administration, in a weakened state politically, ends up trying to rush an agreement that in some ways might be binding to the next administration, whether it’s my administration or Senator McCain’s administration,” Mr. Obama said. “The foreign minister agreed that the next administration should not be bound by an agreement that’s currently made.”

*****************

Mr. Obama, who has not been to Iraq for more than two years, told the New York Times last month that he intended to visit Iraq. His comments today after talking to Mr. Zebari underscored that desire, saying: “I told him that I look forward to seeing him in Baghdad.”

Late last month, Mr. McCain invited Mr. Obama to embark on a joint trip to Iraq, a gesture that Mr. Obama dismissed as a political stunt. The Republican National Committee started a clock, keeping track of the days it has been since Mr. Obama’s visit in January 2006.

“In the nearly 900 days since Barack Obama visited Iraq, the facts on the ground have changed dramatically – but his ideologically-driven position has not,” said Alex Conant, a Republican spokesman. “When Obama visits Iraq, he’ll see that he was wrong to oppose the surge, wrong to continue to ignore our commanders’ advice and wrong to demand premature withdrawal.”

Today, Mr. Obama did not say specifically when he intended to take his foreign trip.

“You know, we’ll make an announcement about that,” he said. “But as I said, I’m interested in visiting Iraq and Afghanistan before the election.”

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