OBAMA'S NEW BIGGEST SCANDAL IN IRAQ! HE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT THE TROOPS!

NEW YORK POST 9/15/08
by Amir Taheri

WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.

According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview.
Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops - and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its "state of weakness and political confusion."

"However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open." Zebari says.

Though Obama claims the US presence is "illegal," he suddenly remembered that Americans troops were in Iraq within the legal framework of a UN mandate. His advice was that, rather than reach an accord with the "weakened Bush administration," Iraq should seek an extension of the UN mandate.

While in Iraq, Obama also tried to persuade the US commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, to suggest a "realistic withdrawal date." They declined.

Obama has made many contradictory statements with regard to Iraq. His latest position is that US combat troops should be out by 2010. Yet his effort to delay an agreement would make that withdrawal deadline impossible to meet.

Supposing he wins, Obama's administration wouldn't be fully operational before February - and naming a new ambassador to Baghdad and forming a new negotiation team might take longer still.

By then, Iraq will be in the throes of its own campaign season. Judging by the past two elections, forming a new coalition government may then take three months. So the Iraqi negotiating team might not be in place until next June.

Then, judging by how long the current talks have taken, restarting the process from scratch would leave the two sides needing at least six months to come up with a draft accord. That puts us at May 2010 for when the draft might be submitted to the Iraqi parliament - which might well need another six months to pass it into law.

Thus, the 2010 deadline fixed by Obama is a meaningless concept, thrown in as a sop to his anti-war base.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Bush administration have a more flexible timetable in mind.

According to Zebari, the envisaged time span is two or three years - departure in 2011 or 2012. That would let Iraq hold its next general election, the third since liberation, and resolve a number of domestic political issues.

Even then, the dates mentioned are only "notional," making the timing and the cadence of withdrawal conditional on realities on the ground as appreciated by both sides.

Iraqi leaders are divided over the US election. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani (whose party is a member of the Socialist International) sees Obama as "a man of the Left" - who, once elected, might change his opposition to Iraq's liberation. Indeed, say Talabani's advisers, a President Obama might be tempted to appropriate the victory that America has already won in Iraq by claiming that his intervention transformed failure into success.

Maliki's advisers have persuaded him that Obama will win - but the prime minister worries about the senator's "political debt to the anti-war lobby" - which is determined to transform Iraq into a disaster to prove that toppling Saddam Hussein was "the biggest strategic blunder in US history."

Other prominent Iraqi leaders, such as Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi and Kurdish regional President Massoud Barzani, believe that Sen. John McCain would show "a more realistic approach to Iraqi issues."

Obama has given Iraqis the impression that he doesn't want Iraq to appear anything like a success, let alone a victory, for America. The reason? He fears that the perception of US victory there might revive the Bush Doctrine of "pre-emptive" war - that is, removing a threat before it strikes at America.

Despite some usual equivocations on the subject, Obama rejects pre-emption as a legitimate form of self -defense. To be credible, his foreign-policy philosophy requires Iraq to be seen as a failure, a disaster, a quagmire, a pig with lipstick or any of the other apocalyptic adjectives used by the American defeat industry in the past five years.

Yet Iraq is doing much better than its friends hoped and its enemies feared. The UN mandate will be extended in December, and we may yet get an agreement on the status of forces before President Bush leaves the White House in January.

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[AlwayzTheQuiet1]

95% of blacks voted for Obama...RACISM AT ITS BEST. Quit bitching at McCain voters for voting for the RIGHT reasons you morons.

[talkbackguy]

Spread The Wealth OBAMA you RAT Bastard. You Are A CROOK, Don't You Dare Take The WORKING MANS MONEY and give it to Thoose booze Drinking non working bums. Give them Your money & bidens money Not Ours, YOU BUM!!!

[damndisplace07]

I'm an ex-military member, and it pisses me off how he cut the G.I. Bill for us. He doesn't give two fucks about us, but yet gets all the credit when Bin Laden gets killed. Time for a change my ass! Oh yeah, and I'm black, and I'm saying this! Color has nothing to do with being a bad president. He cuts troop benefits, and gives our money to fuckin welfare bums, who never worked a day in life. I don't like shit Bush did in office, but one thing he did do right is give us the post 9/11 G.I. Bill.

[whatsgoingon07]

@AlwayzTheQuiet1 90% voted for Kerry, 93% for Al Gore, 94% for Clinton.....all WHTE guys!....you were saying?

[urbman29]

@talkbackguy Obama=communism at its best

[aegisone1]

of course he does not give a shit about the troops. his only concern is acorn and socialism. he has zero comprehension of the military. look at his back ground he could not give two stinking years to serve in the military. he was taught ton despise the military his whole life until now. ask his buddy bill ayers.

[joe80dman]

Obama is just following orders from Rahm Emanuel, and AIPAC, just like Bush did. They couldn't care less about the troops. Why do you think Obama broke his campaign promise of bringing the troops home? It was a LIE, just like every other campaign promise he made. Our foreign policy is dictated by AIPAC, just like the MSM is.

[dre101685]

Crap!!!

[TrAe33333333]

Obama vote, McCain vote. It doesn't matter. They're both part of the same elite. They don't even have access to cosmic level secrets, which is the 1st of 23 levels above top secret.

[coobert15]

maybe, but obama thinks it's all about him. it's the obama show. and nobody else is invited.

[SpeakerHead]

Look deeper my fellow humans. It is not about Obama or what's happening with them. They are only puppets to distract us. The real power lies within those of whom we've never heard before. We are only property to them.