{"id":16288,"date":"2008-07-19T09:55:11","date_gmt":"2008-07-19T13:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/16253.html"},"modified":"2008-07-19T09:55:11","modified_gmt":"2008-07-19T13:55:11","slug":"maliki-endorses-obamas-iraq-strategy-by-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/maliki-endorses-obamas-iraq-strategy-by-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Maliki endorses Obama’s Iraq strategy — by name"},"content":{"rendered":"

Americans have a clear choice in the election. On the one hand, we have a candidate who wants a flexible, 16-month withdrawal policy from Iraq, shaped by conditions on the ground and in consultation with commanders on the ground. On the other hand, we have a candidate who wants the status quo to continue indefinitely, waiting for a yet-to-be-defined “victory,” followed by an indefinite military presence in Iraq.<\/p>\n

And while Americans consider their options, it seems Iraqi officials have already reached their own conclusion. Reuters has this stunning story<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told a German magazine he supported prospective U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s proposal that U.S. troops should leave Iraq within 16 months.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Der Spiegel released on Saturday, Maliki said he wanted U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

“U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”<\/p>\n

It is the first time he has backed the withdrawal timetable put forward by Obama, who is visiting Afghanistan and us set to go to Iraq as part of a tour of Europe and the Middle East.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By any reasonable measure, this is pretty extraordinary. The Bush-backed Iraqi prime minister has endorsed Obama’s withdrawal policy, both in general and by name.<\/p>\n

In fact, it gets better. Maliki, hailed by Republicans, has given up on Republican talking points altogether.
\n<\/p>\n

Asked if he supported Obama’s ideas more than those of John McCain, Republican presidential hopeful, Maliki said he did not want to recommend who people should vote for.<\/p>\n

“Whoever is thinking about the shorter term is closer to reality. Artificially extending the stay of U.S. troops would cause problems.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maliki added, “The Americans have found it difficult to agree on a concrete timetable for the exit because it seems like an admission of defeat to them. But it isn’t.”<\/p>\n

It’s extraordinary. Assuming the report is accurate, and that there wasn’t some kind of translation problem, the prime minister of Iraq believes John McCain is wrong about everything — the utility of withdrawal, the notion of “defeat,” the extended stay, everything<\/i>.<\/p>\n

About a week ago, Maliki was publicly moving in this direction<\/a>, but now he’s dropped the pretense. Obama, the prime minister believes, has the right policy, and McCain has the wrong one.<\/p>\n

I can’t wait for a) McCain to explain why Maliki’s opinion about events in his own country don’t matter; and b) the media to explain to me why this is good news for McCain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Americans have a clear choice in the election. On the one hand, we have a candidate who wants a flexible, 16-month withdrawal policy from Iraq, shaped by conditions on the ground and in consultation with commanders on the ground. On the other hand, we have a candidate who wants the status quo to continue indefinitely, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}