Obama Calls Iraq Bluff, Republicans Want More Groveling

"Rock on left, Hard Place on Right"

The title of this article in the Miami Herald, "As U.S.-Iraqi troop talks faltered, Obama didn't pick up the phone" is one of those tricky bits of wording that means a bit more than it says. It haphazardly alludes back to the time when Hillary Clinton was running against Obama in the Democratic primary. Way back then (we were so much older then, we are younger than that now) she suggested that Obama might have trouble picking up the phone at 3 A.M. when something major was happening... you know, like whether to send special forces to take out a Bin Laden, or deciding whether to back a haphazard revolution in places like Libya, or even merely hunting down killers in Central Africa. The wording of the piece is an implication and an allusion wrapped up together in one myopic piece of reporting.

It goes on to point out the general distance that Obama and Vice President Biden kept from the negotiating table for the past year.

A listing of direct conversations provided by the embassy - drawn, the embassy said, from the White House website - indicates that Obama had no direct contact with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki between Feb. 13, when he telephoned the prime minister, until Friday, when he called al-Maliki to tell him U.S. troops would be withdrawn by Dec. 31. 

(Miami Herald)

Let's think this through. Obama was against the war from the start. He ran for president saying he would bring troops home. Bush did the work for him by agreeing to a deadline this year, but failed to work out immunity for any remaining forces. If you are Obama, do you expend political capital, during domestic and worldwide economic disaster, to argue with Iraqi politicians that they should 1) let troops stay and 2) give them immunity, and for a war you never believed should have been launched? Do you really dance that ridiculous dance?

That's the dance Republicans wanted Obama to engage in. To push to keep troops on the ground, working around the Iraqi parliament (which Obama preferred a deal with) to form an agreement with the arguably shady Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki . What possible good comes out of that effort?

And related, what possible point comes out of the Herald's title, with its allusions to dithering and uncertainty. Obama has managed to have the most solid foreign policy of any recent leader. While washing his hands of the war he didn't want and allowing the troops to come home and rest, he has actively engaged other areas of trouble. He killed the man who justified our attack on Afghanistan, and arguably, we can leave that situation as well, revenge exacted. He took it on the chin for not leading the Libya effort, well aware that the United States is big enough, and strong enough, to lead in multiple ways. Different tact, better result: short war, no American loss of life, greater respect for American restraint and diplomacy, less cash out the door, and a Middle East that is closer to democracy if they choose to accept the gift.

Obama is a smart man, and the last thing he wants to do it prolong a policy he feels was inappropriate.

We here always supported the invasion of Iraq, not for WMD, but for the type of potential democracy we now see spreading. The revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya somehow simultaneously reaffirm the invasion of Iraq, and renounce it, since sourcing the variables that lead people to courage is near impossible. Who gets credit for the emerging democracies? It's not clear.

What is clear is that Obama does not want to expend effort on something he does not believe in, and further something he was elected to end. If you had wanted troops in Iraq indefinitely, you would have voted for the guy who wanted troops in Iraq indefinitely.