Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
"Today I can say our troops in Iraq will definitely be home for the holidays," Obama announced Friday. Save for a "normal embassy presence," the White House made clear that the approximately 40,000 troops still in Iraq will be returning home over the next two months.
Patrick Brennan writing on The Corner points out that this announcement comes in spite of a few suggestions from the administration that indicated that several thousand troops would remain into 2012.
In August of this year, in an interview with Stars and Stripes, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta claimed that an agreement had been reached with the Iraqi government to keep thousands of troops in Iraq through 2012, to train Iraqi security forces.
This September, when it appeared that only a few thousand troops would remain into 2012, Fox News reported that “senior commanders are said to be livid at the decision. . . . Commanders said they could possibly make that work ‘in extremis,’ in other words, meaning they would be pushing it to make that number work security-wise and manpower-wise.”
Asked whether the plan was indeed to drop levels so dramatically and leave so few troops, press secretary Jay Carney said, “No.”
As recently as Saturday, a Pentagon spokesman, in an interview with the Associated Press, claimed that negotiations to keep more troops into 2012 were still ongoing, and no decision had been reached.
Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann have each issued scathing statements of disapproval as has Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Gary Johnson published a Tweet lauding the troop withdrawal, and Ron Paul will no doubt soon follow suit.
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Nov '10
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
Fast forward three years: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdR2Iktffaw
Oct '10
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
Good. We've been in there long enough and if the Iraqi government isn't going to provide our troops with proper legal immunity, it's just time to have them walk on their own. I'm not particularly optimistic about the long term political health of Iraq, but I don't think that having thousands of troops stationed there for years to come is going to matter one way or another.
How much hand holding do these people really need?
If we are really serious about the health of the Iraqi political system, we should be working as hard as possible to get rid of the Iranian dictatorship before they get nuclear weapons and potentially get us involved in yet another war in the region.
Dec '10
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
If Iraqi refusal to grant immunity to troops is the reason for wholesale bailing on the endeavor then this may not be an unpalatable decision. If Obama is just fulfilling a campaign promise then he deserves the usual scorn for all of his military and foreign policy positions.
Aug '11
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
What I found interesting was that this announcement is essentially the Bush administration's timeline for withdrawal.
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
I think that we can be confident of one thing. The final decision was made solely with an eye to the November, 2012 election. Obama gave up being President and assumed a new identity as candidate some time ago.
Aug '10
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
Halle-[TOS violation]-lujah!
I have to confess that at the outset I was enthusiastic about le mission civilisatrice aspects of the war but I was a much younger and stupider person at the time. I didn't appreciate that liberty is a cultural accomplishments that is grounded in fragile institutions and not merely the absence of tyrrany. In retrospect I think President Clinton had the right approach to containment brinksmanship with "Desert Fox" and I'd like to see us return to a posture based on deterrence and gunboat diplomacy but strictly eschewing nation building and generally take an attitude of "not my problem."
We'll know we're serious about this when DOD abolishes MOS 38A/B. Unfortunately I'm not holding my breath given that the administration's idiotic embrace of R2P has gotten us into two wars this year, one of which has just begun with a wild goose chase after a thrill kill cult and the other of which has "succeeded" by having a secular despot who used to give us trouble but who had learned to mind his own business be ousted by a coalition of disgruntled tribesmen and jihadis.
Feb '11
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
And if after all the US troops are gone Iraq ends up controlled by Iran, with those who had supported us murdered or fled a la South Vietnam...
Then it will be of course all George Bush's fault.
Oct '10
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
Agreed. While I'm fine with the decision, I'm not under any illusions that it was made in the best interest of the United States or Iraq. It might turn out to be beneficial as a happy accident, but Obama is in full election mode.
Mar '11
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
This exactly follows the time line Bush negotiated. The Iraqi's do not want us there any more and were unwilling to give our troops immunity from prosecution. So good lets get out.
Politically this is something Obama will brag about, that said Republicans can point to the Bush agreement to show that this is not a unique Obama time table. Also anything bad that happens in Iraq in 2012 running up to the election will be on Obama. The Bachman's and Rommenys can say see look what happened because Obama agreed to leave before the "job" was done
Jul '10
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
I'd never thought I'd say this but: Three Cheers for Obama!
Now, get us out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Uganda, Germany, South Korea, Okinawa, England, etc. etc. etc.
Aug '10
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
As they commented on the podcast, play to the base/ tighten up their support , then lean to the center. Which means we can probably expect an invasion of Canada about next May.
Apr '11
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
"Saad Muttalibi, a foreign policy adviser to Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, said it was impossible to get any deal, let alone one so sensitive, through the current fractured Iraqi parliament. But that masks the achievement of Iran in ensuring its militant Shia allies, which form a rough coalition with Mr Maliki's largely Shia and nationalist State of Law party, scuppered any agreement.
Those Shia allies control militias, supplied by Iran's Al-Quds Force, which the US believes are responsible for attacks on American troops. The withdrawal thus comes uncomfortably close to looking like a Vietnam-style retreat"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/8842380/Iran-will-be-cheering-the-loudest-at-US-Iraq-withdrawal.html
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
So most on this thread seem to think the complete withdrawal from Iraq is a good thing.
For those who are unsure or think it's a bad decision, does this (from National Journal) change your mind?
Jul '10
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
Diane Ellis, Ed.:
For those who are unsure or think it's a bad decision, does this (from National Journal) change your mind?
Oct 21 at 3:12pm
Are you arguing that our troops should stay precisely because the Iraqis want us out?
Jun '10
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
Personally I am sick of our valiant men and women giving their limbs and lives for unappreciative, vengeful, backward thinking people. We should be supporting the only country that is a western civilization ally in that region. We all know who that is. Clarity would do more for peace in that region than any attempt to build a civil nation out of their rot.
Jul '10
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
I hope you are wrong. But I don't think you are.
Diane Ellis, Ed.: So most on this thread seem to think the complete withdrawal from Iraq is a good thing.
For those who are unsure or think it's a bad decision, does this (from National Journal) change your mind?
Doesn't change my mind Diane.
I think the Iraqis are going to rue this. So I think it's bad for them.
But the U.S. made that agreement and if we can't convince them to change their minds then we should leave. By the by, if anything I blame Obama for failing to protect his interests here. I suspect he would have been much happier to know that Iraq was unlikely to become a catastrophe in the middle of his campaign.
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
Michael Tee
Diane Ellis, Ed.:
For those who are unsure or think it's a bad decision, does this (from National Journal) change your mind?
Are you arguing that our troops should stay precisely because the Iraqis want us out? · Oct 21 at 3:59pm
No, not at all. Not sure how you thought that my asking a question was an argument.
I was predisposed to find the complete troop withdrawal from Iraq to be imprudent, myself. But seeing the excerpt I quote which indicates that the Iraqis really want us to get out NOW sort of persuades me that we're probably right to leave. I don't, however, expect that Iraq will be in good shape going forward and I worry that Iran will be the big winner.
Aug '11
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
Diane Ellis, Ed.
Michael Tee
I don't, however, expect that Iraq will be in good shape going forward and I worry that Iran will be the big winner. · Oct 21 at 4:52pm
Iran was the big winner the very day we invaded Iraq.
All the instability we now see in the region began with George W Bush's foolish decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Jul '10
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
Tom Paine
Diane Ellis, Ed.
Michael Tee
I don't, however, expect that Iraq will be in good shape going forward and I worry that Iran will be the big winner. · Oct 21 at 4:52pm
Iran was the big winner the very day we invaded Iraq.
All the instability we now see in the region began with George W Bush's foolish decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein. · Oct 21 at 5:05pm
Hussein was a destabilizing influence long before 2003. The problems in the Middle East did not begin with George W Bush.
Jan '11
Re: Obama Announces Complete Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2011
I confess ignorance; I have no idea what will happen. This is one of those cases where I would like to hear what the diplomats and military commanders have to say ... you know, the people we pay to make those estimates and decisions.
I entirely agree with the Professor and others, and also with the National Journal piece. This was a decision that had nothing to do with a sober assessment of Iraq's security status and our mission there. Obama was just putting lipstick on a pig. He wanted out for personal political reasons, and he was perfectly content to let Iraq bully him out of there.
Friday is the day politicians take out the trash. If it was a huge triumph, Obama would have asked for TV time during the week, and would have made another speech (he does that for everything else, why not this?). Instead, it was little more than a drive-by boast session. It was no longer than it had to be.
He claimed victory and got out.