Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told Germany's Der Spiegel magazine, "U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes." Within hours, U.S. Central Command -- at the behest of a clearly worried White House -- released a statement arguing that Maliki was misquoted through a botched translation. But Monday, Maliki's spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said that the government was talking about "a timetable which Iraqis set." Asked when that timetable would run out, Dabbagh quickly specified, "2010."
As a result, the positions on Iraq of the Bush administration, the U.S. military and Sen. John McCain, the presumed GOP presidential nominee, now face numerous challenges. The administration's plans for a permanent U.S. presence in Iraq have been profoundly undermined. The military will have to adjust to a strategy of extrication. The McCain campaign is presented with one of its nightmare scenarios: the Iraqi premier embracing the judgment of its opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, which strengthens Obama's bona fides on a national-security issue McCain has largely staked his presidential bid on owning.
The weak link in all this, of course, is the media reporting of the events, which is a genuine X-factor considering their long-time love affair with St. John the Maverick. They've buried his flip flops and papered over his cringeworthy foreign policy gaffes, but can they avert their eyes and pretend not to notice that Maliki totally bankrupted McCain and Bush's primary argument for a permanent occupation of Iraq, handing Obama complete control of the crucial yellow/green corner of the board?
2 comments:
of course, reality never fooled anyone anyway. some comments from the politico version of this story:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11903.html
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To a lemming, one road trip is worth 30 years of experience... especially with NBC, CBS and ABC "news" anchors in tow. Obama is now ready to take the throne.
Next, Obama will visit master chef Todd English and will be crowned the master chef of the world after a 5 minute kitchen tour. What happens if Obama gets a tour of the Bunny Ranch in Reid's homestate of Nevada? Hmmmm...
By the way, if every Muslim country endorses Obama along with every terrorist islamic group and every current leader in Black Liberation Theology (i.e. hate whitey) ... do they know something we don't know?
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Why did the left-wingers at Politico use that picture of McCain? Look the odd man out is Obama, clearly. He along with his Party and his pals in our corrupt liberal MSM wolfpack press pushed as hard as they could to retreat from Iraq 1 1/2 years ago, for political reasons only. The war in Iraq is coming to a SUCCESSFUL close thanks to the "father" of the surge John McCain...............THAT'S THE STORY POLITICO. The "real story" is Obama was WRONG on this decision and used poor judgement to "just pack up and move out in 16 months"................vs John McCain's plan to stablize this new Democratic government and allow for the US Armed Forces training of the Iraqi army and police force. Our SUCCESSFUL work in Iraq is almost done and OF COURSE we will be drawing out our US troop levels. But Obama get ZERO CREDIT for this SUCCESS.............McCain gets the credit.......................and KUHN the American people KNOWS that he gets the credit!!!!!!!!! See you on November 4th.......
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Obama continues to "cling" stubbornly to his 16 month draw down which isn't tied to any condidtions on the ground. It's a very stranage strategy because it's not a strategy ...........................it's simply a "typical policial move". ONCE AGAIN Americans can see that Obama uses poor judgement............................and it's because he has no "experience", at all. Obama has not only become the biggest flip flopper of the campaign but now he's clearly the most "stubborn", something I guess that he might have in common with Bush. Imagine that.....................!
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etc.
now its true that the type of people that post comments on politico articles don't tend to exactly be "undecideds," but the fervor with which they grip their fragile realities is remarkable.
Obama's getting good press because he's doing good things. His proposed policies are getting support, his organization is stable and motivated, and his pure political sense is second to none.
and yet even with all of that it'll be a very close election.
sometimes this country sucks. :)
I like the third one. No recognition of the fact that they're Obama of being both Muslim and radical Christian!
Seriously, though, I'm a believer that commenting on news articles is a form of electioneering. People do it to sway other people, and it's generally only people with strong candidate preferences that are going to bother trying. Thus I don't really think the comments on the bottom of the page are any more "authentic" or "representative" than the perpetually fallacious decrees of David Broder on what Americans are thinking.
But yes, it will be close, and it's a bit disheartening that such an unequal match-up isn't going to change that. For what it's worth, though, the guy's name does ring of both of the US' most recent enemies, and that makes it awfully hard to make a good first impression, especially considering we've never elected a guy who's name wasn't Northwestern European.
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