Obama Says Iraq-Nam Withdrawal on Schedule

As State Senator in Illinois, Barack Obama opposed the war against the Saddamite regime in Baghdad as "a dumb war." Inheriting the war of aggression from the Busheviks, Mr. Obama has struggled to keep up whatever progress toward a political solution Iraq-Nam has had, while trying to convince the left wing of his own party that the war is truly winding down. Yesterday addressing a national convention of Disabled American Veterans, he said, "I made it clear that by August 31st, 2010, America's combat mission in Iraq would end -- and that is exactly what we are doing, as promised and on schedule."

In four weeks, Operation Iraqi Freedom comes to an end, and the 50,000 US troops remaining will be there to train the locals and not to fight. In 16 months, the current Status of Forces Agreement between the Baghdad regime and Washington requires those troops to leave as well. While there won't be helicopters taking people off the embassy roof, the Iraq-Nam term applies all the same.

One need not review all of the mistakes of the Bush administration; that is the subject for a three-volume set. Instead, the general failure of the US in Iraq-Nam is summed up in a single, simple fact; five months after the latest election, the politicians there still have yet to form a government. The Baghdad rulers are not just dysfunctional; they are non-functional. If the collapse of communism taught nothing else, it taught that those places where government functioned according to law and therefore was predictable, situations improved quickly. Where government functioned according to the whims of a few kleptocrats, situations have yet to resolve themselves. The future of Iraq-Nam is grim when seen through this prism.

Kathleen Hennessey and Liz Sly of the Los Angeles Times quoted Basma Khatib, an Iraq-Namese women's rights activist, as saying, "Iraqis had hoped they would have a strong, independent government by now, but no one expected it to drag on this long. It's a big mess and things might get a lot worse if we don't have a government soon." Moqtada al-Sadr is waiting in the wings, studying in Qom, Iran, to be an ayatollah. When he gets the title, the elected politicians will find themselves in a world of hurt.

Inevitably, Iraq-Nam is not going to have a strong central government; it is too divided along ethnic lines. The Kurds will take as much autonomy as they can get. The Shi'ites will lean toward Iran, and the Sunni will resist that. Violence will continue to kill scores of people every month, if not hundreds. The economy will not boom any time soon. The presence or absence of American troops will have no effect on this. Their departure, therefore, should proceed "as promised and on schedule." And then, Mr. Obama needs to draw up a similar promise about Afghanistan, where the US is fighting the war in the wrong way for the wrong objectives. Putting Usama bin Laden's head on the end of a stick, yes; creating an Afghan version of Ohio, no. Five thousand special forces and support troops hunting Al Qaeda (even into Pakistan), yes; a hundred thousand fighting the Taliban, no.

© Copyright 2010 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.

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