No, he won’t. It’s politically stupid in a world without principles. Michael Crowley at The New Republic has written about Iraq and Obama–is the plan really feasible in a world where the Democrats aren’t anti-war?
As a candidate for president in 1968, Richard Nixon ran on what is (apocryphally) remembered as a “secret plan to end the war” in Vietnam. We now know, of course, that Nixon had no such intention. Today, Barack Obama’s campaign is largely based around a promise to “end the war” in Iraq by withdrawing troops within 16 months.
He continues,
But some Washington foreign policy mandarins insist this isn’t possible–that a total U.S. withdrawal isn’t achievable and Obama knows it. That Obama, like Nixon, in fact has a secret plan not to end the war. “The classic storyline is that everyone wants to get out, but we’re not going to get out, and everyone’s going to be disappointed,” says Derek Chollet, a former foreign policy adviser to John Edwards. Or, at least, that Obama’s speeches overstate the feasibility of a near-term Iraq exit. “Close to a pipe dream,” says the Council on Foreign Relations’ Leslie Gelb. “I regard that as campaign rhetoric rather than serious policy.” “Wildly unrealistic campaign rhetoric,” scoffs The Washington Post editorial page.
Frankly, it is foolish to believe that a politician like Obama will get out of Iraq. Ron Paul might have gotten us out because he is principled, Obama is not–he is a politician.
Filed under: Barack Obama, Democrats, Election 2008, Geopolitics, Politics
