Juan Cole: We're really leaving Iraq [View All]

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March 2, 2009 | On Friday, nearly six years after George W. Bush's swaggering "Mission Accomplished" speech, a new and humbler president addressed a cheering military audience and declared an end to the Iraq War. But some observers fear that President Barack Obama's blueprint, which extends the American presence for another quarter-decade, raises the possibility of a continued U.S. entanglement in that war.

In particular, Obama's plan to leave 35,000 to 50,000 support troops in Iraq between August 31, 2010 and December 31, 2011, has made the left of his party as nervous as a vegan in a butcher shop. Congressional leaders liked Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi have urged that the number be reduced to 15,000. One can only imagine that the Democratic Party leadership wants to campaign for congress in fall 2010 on having ended the Iraq War, and retaining 50,000 troops there would make that difficult. So has Obama been reduced to "Bush Lite" on the Tigris? In his first detailed policy speech on Iraq, did he renege on his commitment to get out -- or did he skillfully calibrate his plan to avoid any of the booby traps Mesopotamia might still hold for an American president?


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The new president forcefully rejected Bushian mission creep. Obama admitted, "We cannot rid Iraq of all who oppose America or sympathize with our adversaries. We cannot police Iraq's streets until they are completely safe, nor stay until Iraq's union is perfected." In other words, he is prepared to depart Iraq even if it remains somewhat divided, even if a drumbeat of subdued violence continues in its cities, and even if anti-Americanism retains a certain purchase on the population.

It would be wrong to overlook these simple words: "And under the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government, I intend to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011." Though the word "troops" referred to the Army and the Marines, not to the Air Force and Navy, what Obama said on Friday was a firm pledge to leave. And by binding himself to a security agreement formally passed by the Iraqi parliament, Obama was eschewing unilateralism and the patronizing hubris that marked Bush's discourse on Iraq. The Iraqi and Arab press understood this point immediately, and led their accounts of Obama's speech with that sentence abour removing troops. Obama was not signaling any diffidence about ending the Iraq War before the end of his term. He was attempting to provide for an orderly withdrawal that will ensure that U.S. troops are not drawn back in by a subsequent security collapse.


article: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/03/02/obama_iraq/