...That is why, on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war. As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.
We would pursue a diplomatic offensive with every nation in the region on behalf of Iraq’s stability, and commit $2 billion to a new international effort to support Iraq’s refugees. Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven. Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been. ...Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our troops out of Iraq and focus on the broader security challenges that we face.
On careful inspection, this is not a plan for Iraq. Nor is it a suitable strategy to win the war on terror.
The essence of Obama's "Plan for Iraq" is withdrawal followed by negotiation. If most people took the time to assess this plan, they would be mystified at how any credible candidate for national office could support it. The basic idea, which is captured in Obama's article is that Iraq's political situation and self-defense capability are not proceeding as quickly as he (Actually the entire leadership of the Democratic Party since Obama is just a Parrot on this issue) would like. The Solution? Point a gun at their head. Get moving or we are gone. Your protection from al-Qaeda gone, your protection from Iran gone, Protection of the various factions from each other gone. This isn't diplomacy, it's extortion with malice aforethought.
Obama's legitimizing rationale: 1) the war was a mistake to begin with and 2) the real terrorist war is chasing UBL around Waziristan. But this is not a legitimate view of the war on terror. As this Blog has long maintained, wars are fought between nations not between nations and mobs.
On the morning of September 11th, I awoke and fipped on the TV. Thanks to my satellite dish and Monday Night Football, I was tuned to the New York ABC affililate. They had just picked up coverage of a plane impacting one the Towers. At that early hour the reports suggested the plane was a light plane like a Cessna. It was clear from the smoke and damage that no Cessna did that. I sat with my wife, then 6 months pregnant, and watched the terrible events of that day. I clearly recall the thoughts expressed by friends, family, co-workers, and yes even the media that the World had fundamentally changed. The question today is how did it change?
In a post 9/11 World, the real change must be that state sponsorship of terror is no longer a tolerable or endurable element of state craft. The real war on terror involves ending state sponsorship of terror. Agree with the Iraq invasion or not, the current government of Iraq is not a state sponsor. The government of Afghanistan is also not a state sponsor. Sadly, the two remaining state sponsors, Iran and Syria, still operate their terror networks to the detriment of the civilized world.
As it happens we have sophisticated elements of the finest fighting force in the World on the Eastern and Western borders of Iran and on the Eastern border and Western seacoast of Syria. Add in our Naval presence to Iran's south in the Indian Ocean and we have a formidable deterrent to Iranian and Syrian mischief. A deterrent that would-be President Obama would throw away prior to entering negotiations with these notorious state sponsors. This is backwards thinking. Negotiate first, then withdraw.
The only way to end the war is through victory. Victory only occurs when Iran and Syria are no longer state sponsors of terror.
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