More reasons to think we’ll elect our first black President in 2008.
He’s among the leaders in the spin and chutzpah competition:
Presidential contender Barack Obama on Tuesday dismissed his Democratic rivals’ change of heart on the Iraq war as too little too late, while Hillary Rodham Clinton urged a quick end to U.S. involvement in the conflict.
There’s no question Obama opposed the war from the beginning. As far as I can tell — please correct me if you can — that was the last time he was right about Iraq. Perhaps it’s because he’s taking advice from Colin Powell:
According to Powell, the US cannot “blow a whistle one morning” and have all American forces just leave. The former secretary of state has twice met Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, to advise him on foreign policy. Despite his antiwar stance, Obama supports a phased withdrawal that could leave a “significantly reduced force” in Iraq for “an extended period”.
Obama has so far succeeded having it both ways. He takes credit for being the most anti-war candidate, and simultaneously woos the DLC and the Republicans with the promise of an extended deployment, obliquely expressing his agreement with the imperial viewpoint.
There should be only one question: How quickly can we bring the troops home with fewest casualties?
Posted by: whig on July 11, 2007 2:05 PMI agree. Unfortunately the two leading Democrats appear not to.
Posted by: Chuck Dupree (Belisarius) on July 11, 2007 6:18 PMOn the left it is the safe cheap shot to shout bring all the troops home now but will it save U.S. lives in the end? Would we leave an Iraq that we would have to return to as it implodes or produces a dictator worse than the one we removed?
Posted by: StillaScot on July 11, 2007 8:45 PMWhy would we "have to return"? Unless we're trying to steal the oil…
And just because it comes from the left doesn't mean it's a cheap shot.
Posted by: Chuck Dupree (Belisarius) on July 11, 2007 9:02 PMWhy we might have to return:
- Because Iraqi bloodletting reaches a point that all-conscience screams for intervention
- because Al Quaeda extremists win control and make the country a source of terrorist training and jihad
- because Iran invades and decides to go after the oil itself. How many more reasons do you want?
I am on the left myself but have a conscience!
Posted by: StillaScot on July 12, 2007 9:26 PMOkay, I guess we have different estimates of probabilities.
Point by point:
- What level of bloodletting can surpass what we've done in Iraq in the past dozen years? And why would we intervene there when we don't in Africa? Oil. We own it, they just live there.
- I grant the logical possibility of Al Qaeda winning control of Iraq. I estimate the probability to be significantly lower than the probability that Bush's plan will work. In other words, trivially small.
- Iran will not overtly invade Iraq. That would clearly provoke a direct US response. If there's anything the US always accomplishes with its wars, it's the devastation of the country where it happens. Chomsky considers that the US won the war in Vietnam in the sense that it did what it intended. The message is clear: coöperate or we'll bomb you back to the stone age. Of course Iran will have a very large influence in Iraq. The two countries share a border, how could it be otherwise. And the borders were not drawn by the British in an attempt to reduce conflict in the Middle East any more than they were in India and Pakistan.
I too have a conscience, which is why I believe war is bad, especially this one. Perhaps our consciences point us in different directions.
Posted by: Chuck Dupree (Belisarius) on July 14, 2007 1:29 AM