Obama Sets Date for Iraq-Nam Exit

At a speech in front of a ton of US Marines as their base at Camp Lejeune, President Barrack Obama announced he was ending the US involvement in Iraq-Nam 1034 days from now. He promised that all combat troops will be out by August 31, 2010, and that all US forces will be gone by December 31, 2011. This represents a small concession to the Pentagon, but it is largely consistent with his campaign pledges. Still, the left wing of the Democratic Party is upset while the GOP is more or less content.

One must remember that Mr. Obama said throughout the campaign that he would get all US combat forces out of Iraq-Nam within 16 months of taking the oath of office, and that that decision would be tempered by input from the top brass in the military. He decided 18 months was appropriate. Sixty days extra is probably a long time for the last platoon headed home to wait, but after six long, largely pointless years, it's good enough for government work.

That will leave 35,000-50,000 US military personnel in Iraq-Nam on September 1, 2010. This is why the left is having kittens. It's too many, they cry. Well, of course, it is. But a fighting withdrawal is the hardest military maneuver of them all. More men have pulled out of places faster but not without serious loss of life and equipment -- the Wehrmacht managed to withdraw millions from Stalingrad and Moscow all the way to Berlin in about the same time, but that ended in tears for the Fatherland. Moreover, President Obama didn't promise anything else.

This is a significant point that few in the Democratic Party have yet to acknowledge. To many, Mr. Obama is the embodiment of their hopes and aspirations. Many have projected their views onto him, and they are genuinely surprised when he does something else. He has proven himself to be a visionary in many ways, but he is also a pragmatist (community organizers are used to settling for half a loaf). In this policy statement, he is being extremely pragmatic. Moreover, it wins GOP support because it keeps to the Bush administration's negotiated Status of Forces Agreement.

Getting all the troops out by Friday is logistically impossible. Getting them all out by September or even by year's end will create a power vacuum in Iraq-Nam that will increase the violence there and undermine his standing as a commander-in-chief who knows what he's doing for the rest of the single term he would have.

War does not occur without politics. Most of the 142,000 US troops in Iraq-Nam will be there until the end of the year because national elections must be held there by December of this year (and al-Maliki is certain to win if there is minimal violence). Almost 100,000 of them will be gone by September 2010 because the US had mid-term elections that November. And every US military person will be gone before the presidential campaign of 2012 begins. It is not soon enough for this journal that opposed going into Iraq-Nam in the first place. At the same time, plans can always be changed. For now, the direction is correct even if the speed is off.

© Copyright 2009 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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