If you remember, in 2006, Iraq was at its worst. Highest US and Iraqi
casualties, general concensus (at least on the left) that Iraq was in a
civil war. Harry Reid stated that the war was lost. The left was
vehement about giving up on this mess and leaving the Iraqis to just
fight it out among themselves. They were horrified of the Bush proposal
to escalate the war with a surge and the counter-insurgency policy of
Gen. Betrayus. Obama tried to stop the surge with the Act cited. And at
that time, he was with the left on wanting a date certain to withdraw,
the idea being that it would put pressure on the Iraqi government to
take charge of their own affairs.
In any case, Obama has benefited greatly from the success of the surge
and his withdrawal dates are no longer date certain, but objectives.
Chris Dunford wrote:
OK, I stand corrected. I'll rephrase that. Obama
changed his position to the Bush approach four
months BEFORE the election, when he wanted to
distance himself from the quick withdrawal and
move toward the center.
I don't see where there is this big change of position. The Act that you
referenced specified a timetable that was consistent with the best
recommendation available at the time (from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group)
and took into account Bush's statement in January, 2007, that Iraq would be
responsible for all internal security by November, 2007. It was somewhat
shorter than the current timetable, but it's now two years later. Things
change.
Obama has been saying basically the same thing for years, which is that we
should begin a phased and orderly withdrawal, support Iraqi efforts,
maintain any necessary deployments in Iraq, but concentrate on Afghanistan.
So what's the big change in position?
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