I don’t know why the administration decided to announce the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq on a Friday when hardly anyone will notice, but I am very pleased at the news. Not so, Lindsey Graham. I guess some people just like being wrong. If I were Graham, instead of criticizing the decision to leave Iraq, I’d pretend that it proves that the neo-cons were right all along. The truth is, we broke the country and now part of it is being occupied by Turkey. We couldn’t put Iraq back together again and now we’re leaving. Other than removing Saddam Hussein from power, our mission wasn’t successful on any level. Investing more lives and treasure isn’t going to make Lindsey Graham right. It’s not going to reduce Iran’s expanded influence. Nine years of futility is enough. Of all the things Barack Obama promised on the campaign trail, this was the most important to me. It’s a promise a lot of people thought he wouldn’t keep.
Mitt Romney says it’s a failure of leadership. He’s an idiot.
Yeah, saw some military dude on CNN, and dude said this is a good thing for “individual soldiers” who get to come home from Iraq, but it’s a “stategic mistake”.
Anything positive that Obama does from here on out will be labeled as “trying to get re-elected”. It’s a no-win situation for him.
I hope to never hear liberal-minded people say that Mittens wouldn’t be that bad as POTUS (believe me, I’ve heard it from people I expected better of):
Romney: Mission not accomplished
That’s what Mitt said today. Tomorrow or the next day may bring another flip/flop. Mitt is no leader of men.
Mitt’s contradicted himself so many times his tongue isn’t forked, it’s fractal.
Obama had planned on keeping troops in the country for training purposes, but negotiations broke down over the prospect of U.S. soldiers being subject to Iraqi law. (from USA Today)
yeah, brer rabbit, and all that.
Of the eleven levels of chess, this is consistently six or seven. They still don’t see it coming. Same with DADT.
Sometimes the future can be shaped by letting it happen.
“Officials from both countries discussed” is some pretty vague language, but you read it as “Obama wanted to keep troops?” But then he couldn’t negotiate a deal, and oops!
You know, that’s just like how he so very much wanted to change the Social Security COLA and raise the Medicare age, but gosh darnit the deal fell through because of a non-negotiable condition Obama insisted on. Funny how that keeps happening.
How much could Obama have really wanted to keep trainers in the country, if he made such a non-starter as immunity his response to the idea?
Let’s take a step back here: would George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson or Dwight Eisenhower have let threats of prosecution from the locals deter them from continuing to occupy a country they wanted to keep troops in?
Good points.
The Iraq War defined the last decade. I know I’m not alone when I say that it was the primary cause in my political awakening. It has been the one constant in my political consciousness, and it is very strange to think that it is going to be over.
Opposition to the war led me to meet some very awesome people, including many who frequent or used to frequent this blog. It has also led to the breaking off of other friendships.
Mostly, I’m exuberant at this news. I am glad that our troops will finally get to come home and spend time with their loved ones without having to worry about when their next turn in the rotation will come. At least for awhile.
But part of me is sad that so much blood has been shed, and will continue to be shed as Iraq tries to find its equilibrium without a U.S. presence. And part of me is extremely frustrated that it took so god damn long for this to finally happen.
Good job, President Obama. I had almost resigned myself to the notion that this would be an eternal occupation, and that the inertia of expectation would grant the political cover necessary to make it so. I could not be happier to be wrong.
I swear I’m ecstatic! This is more then I had hoped. I thought for sure we would leave 15000 or more after we pressured Maliki.
This is great! Obama’s biggest fucking deal yet!
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Bush and the Obama administration wanted to keep a few thousands US troops in Iraq after the 2011 “deadline.” Iran’s proxy Moqtada Al Sadr threatened to resume resistence to oppose US troops and Nuri al-Maliki promised sovereignty for Iraq government and no immunity for foreign troops. No deal, so the Pentagon will pull out by year’s end.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I hope the “no immunity” also applies to the Blackwater thugs that he is reportedly hiring. Oh, right, I forgot. Those are for “internal security”, i.e. death squads.
Never should have gone into that fucking country.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/21/8433344-republicans-criticize-obama-over-iraq-withdr
awal
Bachmann wants the Iraqis to pay us for liberating them.
100,000 dead men, women and children and she wants Iraq to pay us. That asshole is so far out there.
Exactly what decade do the Republicans want to end the occupation? God forbid they can’t have endless wars. They talk all this shit and then bitch about the deficit? Crazy, crazy bunch of assholes.
When? When do you predict the oil will be all gone?
Good point. I almost forgot what the war was about.
Thanks for flagging this, Booman. This is a stunning accomplishment by Obama. Help me out folks, but I can’t think of another time in the past 50 years when a president (particularly a Democratic president) came into office pledging to end a war, then announced a new strategy that would result in the withdrawal of all US troops by a date certain—and made it happen.
The Pentagon, the foreign policy establishment, the defense contractors, the Republicans, the neo-conservatives, the liberal hawks in and out of Congress—none of them could stop him. It’s a mindblowing accomplishment on the one hand, and just another day at the office on the other.
I bet there are a lot of bars in and around the Beltway filled tonight with guys wondering how that Kenyan Muslim Socialist who never spent a day of his life in uniform outmaneuvered them all.
Eisenhower? Korea?
Fifty years brings us to 1961, so technically, no.
With the 50 year proviso, agreed. Besides, Eisenhower was a most untypical Republican. No wonder the John Birch Society thought he was a communist.
He wasn’t really a Republican.
He was a superstar who accepted the Republicans’ nomination.
So, yes, within the last 60 years, there’s Eisenhower and Korea.
However, in some ways that example makes Obama’s political accomplishment even more remarkable. Eisenhower was a five star general who’d been Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during WW II, the first Supreme Commander of NATO forces, and informally acted as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Truman’s administration. Eisenhower was a West Point graduate who’d grown up in Kansas and could trace his ancestors’ arrival in what became the United States to 1741.
Obama began his public life as a college student (at Columbia, the closest intersection between his and Eisenhower’s pre-presidential lives) protesting the Reagan military buildup and the nuclear arms race. He first gained statewide and national prominence for a speech he gave at a street rally protesting the invasion of Iraq. It’s hard to think of another prominent American political figure with a background more ripe for caricature by right-wing culture warriors—or one who military and foreign policy hawks “should” have found easier to roll.
Instead, the opposite has happened. The end of the Iraq War is happening on Obama’s schedule with scarcely a hint of serious political opposition or blowback.
I think the Obama re-election campaign are ready for any of the GOP nominee, but they expect it to be Romney. But I’m noticing that the campaign aint’ going all out on Romney yet, but when they do, they aren’t giving soft hit either.
From Greg Sargent on twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/ThePlumLineGS/status/127482198835204096
From BenSmith @politico:
http://twitter.com/#!/benpolitico/status/127482316871307264
I think the re-election campaign are obviously more ready than we think. Just biding their time.
It was made on a Friday so that it would hit the Sunday bobbleheads at the same time as the discussion about Muammar Gadafhi’s death. It’s puts those two into relief for those naysayers who question his judgment.
And he does a complete drawdown–no bases and no advisors. Now watch the search by the left for any contractors who might be remaining.
Already happening
It’s a wonder things aren’t worse in Iraq right now.
I’ve known for three years that Obama would be making this announcement. He’s hit every single mark on the timeline he announced for withdrawal, as I expected him to, and now he’s hitting this one, too. That’s no big surprise.
But it’s pretty surprising that he seems to be pulling it off without the catastrophe so many people predicted would attend our exit – left and right. We’ll have to see what happens after the end of December, but so far, things seem to be going as least-bad as anyone could have hoped on in November of 2008. Obama has done this in a way that’s really contained the damage.
I know Iraq is all kinds of screwed up right now, but we’re lucky it’s not like 2006 or worse.
Things aren’t worse because Bush was forced into holding elections after the failure of his viceroy. And the Sadrists decided to participate in the elections through a coalition of Shi’ites that was brokered by Ayatollah Sistani. And then when Bush was about to leave office without victory, the Iraqi government negotiated a Status of Forces Agreement with him that called for US forces to be out of there by December 2011. That looks for all the world like a time bomb set to go off in Obama’s face right before the election. But Obama maneuvered to make it work by getting Petraeus out of there and letting the Iraqi government call the shots.
Now the Iraqi government might have an Arab Spring situation emerging calling for an end to corruption. And an insurgent movement against Turkey from the Kurdish provinces on Turkey’s border. But it’s their government as of Christmas to run as they will. And the US has taken away the “enemy occupier” as an issue.
Next one Afghanistan.
I can’t help but notice that those elections didn’t stop the civil war, the ethnic cleansing, or the growth of a foreign-jihadi-fueled Sunni insurgency in the succeeding years.
It’s like the president took away his G.I. Joes.