Bush agrees to time 'horizon' on Iraq troop cuts
When I look at the way the press jumped all over Obama's remarks that he would "continue to refine" his withdrawal plans for US forces in Iraq, which has essentially been his position all along:On Iraq, he drew cheers when he said: "I opposed this war from the start" and "I have also consistently said that once we were in, we had to be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in."
I can't wait to see how those who accuse Obama of flip-flopping react to this 100% back flip:
President Bush and Iraq's prime minister have agreed to set a "general time horizon" for bringing more U.S. troops home from the war, a dramatic shift from the administration's once-ironclad unwillingness to talk about any kind of deadline or timetable.Isn't this the very thing that Bush pledged never, ever to give? A timetable for withdrawal?
The announcement Friday put Bush in the position of offering to talk with Iraqi leaders about a politically charged issue that he adamantly has refused to discuss with the Democratic-led Congress at home. It also could complicate the presidential campaign arguments of Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama who have staked out starkly opposite stands about the unpopular war.
And what will McCain's stance evolve into now? At first he claimed that Maliki had never asked for a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops, which evolved into a dismissal of Maliki's request as somehow being just politics, and which has evolved again into claiming that a withdrawal would be proof of victory after all.
The very people who have been dismissing Obama's planned withdrawal as an exercise in naivety, and "playing into the terrorists hands", are going to have to do quite a bit of dancing to convince us that this is what they wanted all along.
And watch McCain dance:
The truth is, on both Iraq and on Iran, the White House have moved ever nearer to doing the very things that McCain berated as naivety when proposed by Obama.As for the campaign to elect a new commander in chief, McCain firmly opposes any withdrawal timetable while Obama pledges to pull out combat troops within 16 months. By talking about a "time horizon," Bush appeared at odds with McCain and could make his own GOP administration a tougher target for Obama's anti-war barbs.
McCain issued a statement saying, "Progress between the United States and Iraq on a time horizon for American troop presence is further evidence that the surge has succeeded. ... If we had followed Sen. Obama's policy, Iraq would have descended into chaos, American casualties would be far higher, and the region would be destabilized."
However, Ben Rose, a senior adviser to Obama, said, "It's another indication that the administration is moving toward ... Sen. Obama's position on negotiating the removal of our forces as part of our ongoing discussions with the Iraqi government."
And McCain, having denied that Maliki even asked for a US troop withdrawal and then, once he admitted that Maliki had asked for such a thing chose to dismiss it as "politics", now embraces that withdrawal timetable as proof of "the success of the surge."
You see, everything always seems to be going John McCain's way, even if what's happening is the very thing he was adamantly opposed to just last week.
And I just love this:
Friday's White House statement was intentionally vague and did not specify what kind of timelines were envisioned. That allows Iraqi officials, who are facing elections in the fall, to argue they are not beholden to Washington or willing to tolerate a permanent military presence in Iraq. For Bush, it points the way toward a legal framework for keeping American troops in Iraq after a U.N. mandate expires on Dec. 31.If the American presence in Iraq is what the civilian population wants, why would Iraqi politicians need to offer them such reassurances to have any hope of being elected?
The truth here is that McCain's attacks on Obama's position regarding Iraq have been exposed as utterly bogus.
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