Analysis: The Two Vital Words on Obama's Iraq Withdrawal "Intend To"

Related Post: Withdrawal from Iraq? The Escape Clauses Begin

Update: Jeremy Scahill offers a related, pessimistic analysis on AlterNet. Marc Lynch is much more hopeful.


"Intend to" as in "I intend to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011"....

With that statement, President Obama apparently went beyond my immediate concern that some in the US Government were planning on the long-term stay of 50,000 American soldiers in the country. With those two words, however, he left himself room for manoeuvre. Less positively, it is also room for the US military and its supporters to maintain its pressure for permanent bases in the area. That is the space that leading Democrats in Congress were trying to shut down last night; as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi framed it, "The remaining missions given to our remaining forces must be clearly defined and narrowly focused so that the number of troops needed to perform them is as small as possible."

In that context, the headline of "the historic announcement" of an 18-month timetable for withdrawal of US combat troops is peripheral. Whether it was 16 months (Obama's original plan), 23 months (the US military's counter), or 18 months (the political compromise) is tangential to the larger questions of the American political and military intentions.

Far more important is a passage in the speech that has received less media attention, except from The Washington Post:

We must work with our friends and partners to establish a new framework that advances Iraq’s security and the region’s....Going forward, the United States will pursue principled and sustained engagement with all of the nations in the region, and that will include Iran and Syria.

As I've noted before, that was a formula put forward by the Iraq Study Group in 2006 but rejected by the Bush Administration in favour of the military-first "surge": "The United States should immediately launch a new diplomatic offensive to build an international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region. This diplomatic effort should include every country that has an interest in avoiding a chaotic Iraq, including all of Iraq’s neighbors."

Obama's Iraq strategy is thus part of the wider engagement strategy his Administration has been pushing from Inauguration Day. On the one hand, that raises optimism that the discussions with Syria and Iran are not just token displays and could lead to the most productive American strategy in the "wider Middle East" in at least 30 years. On the other, the failure of that engagement now has serious consequences: if talks with Tehran and/or Damascus collapse, then Obama's "intention to" withdraw completely by the end of 2001 is in jeopardy.

Which brings up back to those 50,000 troops. The Iraq Study Group was clear: "The United States must not make an open-ended commitment to keep large numbers of American troops deployed in Iraq." That recommendation, however, ran up against an earlier Bush Administration strategy of maintaining an indefinite presence in the country, not primarily for Iraqi stability, but to maintain a "preponderance of power" over rivals such as Syria and Iran and to ensure control of energy resources. Some in the US military, and their supporters outside Government, are still wedded to that vision.

That, of course, is a prospect which is not welcomed by many folks in Tehran or Damascus, let alone the political elite in Baghdad. So the irony is that the frontline of Obama's Iraq plan is not in Iraq but in the wider region. Watch the manoeuvres of those who are hostile to any engagement not only because they don't like "rogue states" (and, in some cases, are committed to an Israel-first approach) but because they want to maintain a platform for US permanent bases in Iraq. And watch for the response of the Obama Administration --- the longer it sustains a serious commitment to the regional dialogue advocated in 2006, the more likely it is that the President's "intend to" becomes a reality.

Barack Obama is Not Muslim. He's the Anti-Christ. Or Maybe Hitler.

Related Post: Barack Obama is Hitler (This Time They’re Serious)

Our favourite on-line encyclopedia, Conservapedia, seems to be flagging in its quest to prove scientifically (creation-scientifically, not evolution-scientifically) that President Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim. Their latest evidence, "He has said that 'Islam can be compatible with the modern world'", seems to be an even bigger stretch than the Man-Lived-Alongside-Dinosaurs-Museum in Kentucky.

Maybe the Conservapedians need to re-focus their efforts. The crack investigative journalists at The Daily Show are tracking evidence that the Leader of the Free World is in fact the 666 Fellow or the Not Very Nice German with the Tiny Moustache:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Unusual Suspect

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

War on Terror Watch: Obama's Crew Trying, Failing to Halt Court Cases on Surveillance

Another episode in the Obama tale of "Not What We Say But What We Do" in the War on Terror:

On Friday, a US Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the claim of Obama's Justice Department that surveillance without warrants (if you prefer, "domestic spying"), a procedure extended by the Bush Administration, came under the category of "state secrets" and could not be reviewed by the courts.

The case arose when Bush officials accidentally sent classified documents to the lawyers of a charity, the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, being investigated by the Treasury Department. The documents covered attorney-client discussions which were monitored by the National Security Agency.

In a second case, on Wednesday Justice Department lawyers vigorously supported Congressional legislation which granted full immunity to US telecommunications companies that participated in the Bush Administration's domestic surveillance programme.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation of San Francisco approached the US District Court to rule that the activity of the telecommunications companies was unconstitutional. Government lawyers responded, "[This] is the law of the land, and as such the Department of Justice defends it in court."

As a Senator of Illinois, Obama said he opposed the immunity clause but supported the bill for warrantless surveillance which included it.

President Obama's State of the Nation: As Good as The West Wing?

Two days after the Presidential election, John Matlin ("Publius") posted an advance copy of Barack Obama's "State of the Union" message. Even though the Tuesday speech to Congress was labelled as "State of the Nation", John wasn't far off the mark with sentences like "Americans have faced dark days before. Using our ingenuity, know-how, willingness to work and sheer strength of character, we have won through."

Here is his assessment of the "real" State of the Nation statement by President Obama:

In one of those peculiarities of political protocol, Obama’s speech on Tuesday night to a joint session of Congress was “a Presidential address”, not a State of the Union message. Leaving aside the technical argument for constitutional lawyers --- did the President fulfil his obligations under Article II, Section 3 to “give to the Congress information of the State of the Union”? --- the better analogy might be that Obama gave the American equivalent of the Queen’s Speech to the British Parliament. This was an ambitious legislative programme, but it had little or no detail.

Sometimes observers of US Presidential politics allow themselves flights of fancy. In discussions of who is the best post-World War II Presidents, or indeed any president since 1865, Franklin D. Roosevelt invariably comes top. Since the 1990s, however, the name of Josiah Bartlet has always been high in the rankings. For those unfamiliar with US politics or culture, Bartlet was never one of the 43 men in the White House, but he did play the President on TV in The West Wing.

Both CNN and the New York Times have claimed that Obama’s speech harked back to the days of FDR and Lyndon Johnson, but it had many elements of vintage Jed Bartlet. Martin Sheen, Bartlet's alter ego, might have coached Obama in style and delivery --- at no time did Obama look like he was not in control of this American set-piece drama. Further, Obama’s suggestion that during the next decade, a cure for cancer will be found is, virtually, a direct lift from Series 3 of The West Wing. The only difference is that, at the last minute, President Bartlet decided it was step too far, even for him or scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin.

There is nothing wrong in an administration seeking a cure for cancer. It is a brilliant initiative. After all, one in three people in the West will suffer from the disease at some time in their lives. However, should not Obama have disclosed what resources he will put towards the goal?

Equally important, there are research institutes all over the world who are focused on bringing about the same result. Why not make it an aim for all such institutes to work together? Obama knows the subject is complex and there will be no single cure for all cancers. A combined effort might bring about speedier and less expensive solutions.

Obama pulled no punches in his speech. He proposed an activist government and busy legislative programme, presumably in an effort to position himself as a national leader in the face of continued Republican opposition. He directed much of his venom at the banks and bankers. However, his bromide about not spending a dollar of tax money on bankers was hollow. Bankers will be paid for their work, whether Obama likes it or not.

Obama brought vital issues of the budget deficits, dependence on foreign oil, global warming, the rising cost of healthcare, and the decline in education forward as matters of urgency, both for his administration and the American people. It is proper for him to do so. Previous administrations, dating back to Reagan, have in many respects either caused the problems or behaved like ostriches.

As usual, the devil will be in the detail. Some of the answers to questions of policy detail will be provided in the administration’s budget proposals published. It will be valuable to compare those proposals with Obama’s vision for America.

Text: President Obama's Budget

President Obama's budget document, setting out US Federal Government spending of more than $3 trillion in the next fiscal year:

Fy10 Overview

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Periodicals & Report budget Barack Obama