{"id":75,"date":"2008-10-23T23:50:59","date_gmt":"2008-10-23T23:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2008\/10\/obama-will-not-leave-iraq-good.html"},"modified":"2008-10-23T23:50:59","modified_gmt":"2008-10-23T23:50:59","slug":"obama-will-not-leave-iraq-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/10\/obama-will-not-leave-iraq-good.html","title":{"rendered":"Obama will not leave Iraq. (good.)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve long argued that no Democratic president will fully withdraw from Iraq<\/a>. There’s been plenty of evidence<\/a> of Obama’s intentions in that regard; the latest is this exchange from Joe Klein’s recent interview with Obama<\/a>:<\/p>\n

[Q] Lets go back to we’re now moving to the issue portion. When you
\nquestioned [General Petraeus] [in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee] the last
\ntime. You asked him about what [conditions on the ground] would be
\n‘good enough’ for us to leave Iraq.<\/p>\n

[BO] Right.<\/p>\n

[Q] As you sit here today, and you look at what’s happening in Iraq, is it good enough? <\/p>\n

[BO] I don’t think it’s quite good enough yet<\/b> because I think we have
\nto do a little more training. We’ve got to build up the logistical
\ncapacity<\/b>. I think the possibilities of ethnic strife breaking out again
\nare still present, precisely because the political system has not
\nstabilized itself yet. But I do believe that we are at a point now
\nwhere we can start drawing down troops. I think we can time a process
\nwhere the drawing down of troops parallel to building up the capacity
\nin Iraq and the Sofa agreement that just, the Sofa that was just put
\nforward I think reflects that reality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, this position has nuance and is markedly different from the stay-the-course, empty promise of victory policy of the Bush Administration (and John McCain). It’s still not enough for the “progressive” leftists, however, whose Responsible Plan<\/a> still calls for total withdrawal of all combat troops. It may surprise many to hear that I am (marginally, but firmly) on the other side of the fence from them, and advocate what the CSIS calls “strategic patience<\/a>” (PDF link) in Iraq. This is primarily because there is a blood cost to withdrawal<\/a> and I believe the United States bears a moral responsibility as well as a strategic one. <\/p>\n

Naturally, once Obama is elected, the Obama Administration is going to cause a lot of heartburn to progressive leftists and isolationist conservatives (like Daniel Larison<\/a>) alike. Team Obama is well- aware of this, which may explain Joe Biden’s somewhat odd comments a while back about Obama being tested early on<\/a> in his presidency. To me, the interesting part of Biden’s comments were as follows:<\/p>\n

“Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. … And he’s gonna need help. And
\nthe kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you – not
\nfinancially to help him – we’re gonna need you to use your influence,
\nyour influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s
\nnot gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re
\nright<\/b>.”
…
“… he’s gonna need your help. Because I
\npromise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going,
\n‘Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so
\ndown? Why is this thing so tough?’ We’re gonna have to make some
\nincredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I’m asking you
\nnow, I’m asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the
\nfaith you had at this point<\/b> because you’re going to have to reinforce
\nus.” <\/p>\n

“There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go, ‘Whoa,
\nwait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don’t know about that decision’,”
\nBiden continued. “Because if you think the decision is sound when
\nthey’re made, which I believe you will when they’re made, they’re not
\nlikely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they’re popular,
\nthey’re probably not sound<\/b>.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

emphasis mine – and keep in mind that total withdrawal from Iraq is very popular right now. I read the above as a warning to supporters who may think Obama will be the exact opposite of President Bush in every respect, that there may be (will be!) occassions where President Obama decides to use force in a manner that the “progressive” left willl not approve of. Maintaining a troop presence in Iraq, and expanding operations in Afghanistan, are likely to be only the start. And I approve wholeheartedly – it’s going to be a more dangerous world, not less, over the next ten years. I know this puts me at odds with most of the liberal mainstream but I am proudly a pragmatic liberal interventionist<\/a> in these matters. After all, as a liberal, can one permit genocide to re-occur? How exactly, apart from joining Facebook groups, do we Save Darfur? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve long argued that no Democratic president will fully withdraw from Iraq. There’s been plenty of evidence of Obama’s intentions in that regard; the latest is this exchange from Joe Klein’s recent interview with Obama: [Q] Lets go back to we’re now moving to the issue portion. When you questioned [General Petraeus] [in the Senate…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[29,121,120,123,124,26,122],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nation-building","tag-barack-obama","tag-foreign-policy","tag-iraq","tag-joe-biden","tag-pli","tag-politics","tag-withdrawal"],"yoast_head":"\nObama will not leave Iraq. 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The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}