<p>Obama is not going to withdraw the troops in 1 year, 2 years, or whatever the “refined” timetable happens to be this week. If you are counting on Obama to withdraw the troops, you would be very disappointed if he becomes the president.</p>
<p>Obama’s position on Iraq is no different from McCain’s position: withdraw when Iraq is stable, and that can take 1 year or 5 years. Keep troops there to protect American interests.</p>
<p>There is absolutely NO DIFFERENCE between Obama’s plan and McCain"s plan. Only those who have not read their positions will conclude otherwise.</p>
<p>That’s what I believe, too, but I might be misinterpreting the Status of Forces Agreement the Bush administration is currently negotiating.</p>
<p>I’d really like to know the answer to this question: If the Bush administration gets the Status of Forces agreement signed, will McCain or Obama have any say about long-term troop levels in Iraq, or will they be mandated by the SOF agreement?</p>
<p>Well, you may want that to be truth or to assert that it will be truth because of realities that will face whoever gets elected. </p>
<p>McCain quite clearly asserts on his website a continuation of the current policies, and Obama asserts that he will withdraw from Iraq.</p>
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<p>Well, this agreement first needs to be approved by the Iraqi lawmakers – itself a huge hurdle since our presence guarantees for the Shi’ite majority that they can’t run roughshod over the Sunnis and the Kurds – or if it does get passed then we’ll have to wait out the insurgent attacks that will inevitably follow the agreement.</p>
<p>I agree with some of the earlier posters that it really doesn’t matter what either of the candidates WANT to do. Circumstances will dictate what WILL be done. The only difference will be in how they execute what needs to be done. They can both espouse whatever they want during the campaign and it will go out the window once they take office. A lot of time the POTUS spends their time being reactive, not proactive.</p>
<p>Well, you may hold that opinion, but that’s something different from saying that Obama knows this and is lying about his intentions.</p>
<p>What I like is that Obama is straightforward that he thinks it was a stupid war for us to have engaged in, and his strategy follows from there.</p>
<p>John McCain says it was a worthwhile war and consistently paints the situation as having enjoyed more progress than it has. He out and out lies on this point, and so he gives A LOT of credibility to his own statement that he doesn’t care if the troops are there for a hundred years.</p>
<p>There are HUGE differences between their positions. One has out and out lied and been caught in that lie – and his name is McCain.</p>
<p>The thing is that within the past 18 months we’ve armed 113,000 Sunni insurgents (and paid them), on top of the arms Betrayus provided to Al-Qaeda. At the same time, we’ve backed a pro-Iranian Shiite government against a pro-Iranian insurgency. And then ethnically cleansed an additional million Iraqis. The result is that instead of a government that will be firmly in control once we leave, we’ve set up the conditions for civil war, and provided arms for all sides of the conflict. </p>
<p>In that sense, conditions are MUCH worse than before the so-called “surge” (read: increase in aggressive, hostile occupying forces.) Ask any of the five million refugees (roughly 20% of the nation’s population) whether “conditions have improved on the ground”.</p>
<p>prlcomm, you are right that circumstances will dictate the decisions that are made by the President, but the decisions will be made in the context of both the short and long term goals, and those are very different. McCain wants to “win” the war and he probably would like to see a long-term presence of US forces and influence in the region. Obama wants to get out of Iraq, and redeploy troops to areas like Afghanistan where he sees a greater need – but of course he wants to do that as safely as possible - and we know that in general he is a more cautious, thoughtful individual. (By “thoughtful” I mean more likely to think things through carefully before acting). So he may decide to slow the pace of withdrawal if it appears that there is serious risk of destabilizing an area with a significant reduction of force – but he is highly unlikely to escalate or dig in deeper. McCain, I think, would escalate – for example, be more likely to authorize risky missions to take back control of areas that have already been lost (think Fallujah). </p>
<p>I think McCain would be afraid of humiliation or a sense that the US “lost” the war – whereas Obama would be afraid of sustaining heavy casualties or loss, but not of a safe withdrawal even if it could be characterized as a retreat or loss. For one thing, he has the ability to say that the war was a mistake all along and never should have been started – whereas McCain has supported the war all along and has been arguing that it has simply been mismanaged. So McCain has a need to prove that the war is winnable, at whatever cost. </p>
<p>Think of it in terms of an investment strategy: lots of people have money in the stock market, and all are subject to the overall fluctuations of the market – but not all portfolios look the same. People who plan to retire soon choose a different set of investments than others in order to preserve the liquidity of their investments.</p>
<p>Dear mini,
I’m not quite sure what benefit you get from making snide comments on this discussion board, but mocking an active member of the armed forces really isn’t called for. General Petraeus didn’t earn a phd from Princeton and spend his entire adult life serving our nation so people like you could sit behind computer screens and mock him for treason. I respectfully ask you to post an apology to the cc community.</p>
<p>BedHead, I’ve read everything I can find on the Iraq SOFA. If the Bush administration gets the agreement signed–which many people in Iraq, Washington, and other Middle Eastern countries seem to think is a foregone conclusion–then I believe the presence of US troops in Iraq going forward will be mandated by the SOFA. I think the reason that McCain has said things like “the US could spend maybe 100 years in Iraq” and “bringing the troops home is not too important…what’s important is the casualties in Iraq” is because he knows the SOFA will mandate the future US presence in Iraq.</p>
<p>The Bush administration has spent billions of dollars building mega-bases in Iraq over the past four years. The National Security Archive recently obtained declassified documents that show the US began drafting a SOFA in November 2003 that would essentially provide the US with unlimited military operations capabilities in Iraq in the future. High on the list was 58 permanent military bases. (The Iraqis have reportedly negotiated the number of bases down to the high 30s.)</p>
<p>Although the Bush administration says the bases will not be permanent, Iraqi insiders have leaked information about how the US plans to get around the designation “permanent.” If a US base has a single wire strand around its perimeter and just one Iraqi guard, then the US says it’s an Iraqi base. Another way to bypass the “permanent” designation is to negotiate short- and long-term base contracts with guaranteed option of renewal.</p>
<p>I agree, and it’s important because it’s an indication of Obama’s likely foreign policy decisions should he be elected. McCain has surrounded himself with neoconservative foreign policy advisors. There’s no doubt of the direction his foreign policy would take should he be elected.</p>
<p>This is the key point right here. People have become numb to the neocons – they just don’t realize how wacky they are. Heck, Bush I basically ran their ideas out of his Administration on a rail realizing how wacky they were. </p>
<p>Conservative should not even be in their label; they are radical. These guys act like we have money and soldiers enough to conquer the entire Middle East and that vanquished people would either love or respect us for having brought them the gift of democracy. When people say America has lost its idea of what it represents, they are largely talking about what these wackos are doing.</p>
<p>Regarding the SOFA, I’ve read that it will get delayed until after Bush steps down. Muqtada Al Sadr, for one, is bitterly against it and his opinion will count for a lot.</p>
<p>Again, I go back to the point that this agreement can say anything and perhaps they’ll be able to shove it down the throats of enough Iraqi lawmakers to get it approved, but if this happens this will probably be the thing as much as anything that leads to another 9/11 this one quite likely a suitcase nuke. Remember probably the main motivation for Bin Laden’s 9/11 plans: he couldn’t stand the presence of the infidels in the Holy Land of Saudi Arabia. Of course, I can’t foresee that exact thing. But that will bring us to endless war.</p>
<p>“Conservative should not even be in their label; they are radical.”</p>
<p>Perhaps. But to me they are mostly characterized by high-risk & dangerous behavior, which certainly does not qualify as “conservative” in any definition.</p>
<p>BedHead, Unless I’m totally misunderestimating the Bush administration, it will find a way to get the SOFA signed–just like it’s accomplished everything else it wants to do, and no matter what the costs. I’d love to be a fly on the wall during negotiations. There’s no telling what kinds of shenanigans the Bush administration will resort to in order to get the agreement signed.</p>
<p>I’ve read that al-Maliki, the Kurds, and some Shia want the agreement signed. I suspect they’re currently making a lot of noise to appease those who are against the agreement. Even if the UN mandate has to be extended, I’ll be shocked if the SOFA isn’t signed before Bush’s term ends.</p>
<p>While Obama has tuned his views on certain topics and moved closer to center as pretty much all Presidential candidates do once they nab their party’s nomination, McCain has flip-flopped on so many issues that he is totally unrecognizable from the McCain of 1999/2000.</p>