But now his doggedly anti-war rhetoric sounds increasingly out of place. As recently as Tuesday, he told supporters he could not “pretend that there are many good options left in Iraq” — an astonishing statement in light of the dramatically changed circumstances.
Obama has favored immediate withdrawal, regardless of conditions on the ground. He has accused the Bush administration of merely “throwing troops at the problem.” He has even voted against funding ongoing combat operations.
He predicted the failure of the surge. After the additional troops were deployed, he said they should be removed immediately. “Not in six months or one year — now.”
Last week he sounded slightly more measured. He said that in getting out of Iraq, we must be as careful “as we were careless getting in.” Yet this is a man who has stayed in place as the situation on the ground has steadily improved. The ongoing success of the troop surge is undeniable to all but the most closed-minded opponents.
Late last month, The New York Times reported that recent Iraqi successes in Basra and Sadr City “appear to be stretching to the long-rebellious Sunni Arab district” in Mosul.
The Washington Post reported that in Sadr City, “A little over two weeks ago, U.S. troops were on the front lines of fierce, unrelenting urban warfare. But virtually overnight, their main mission has become one of rebuilding portions of the vast, tattered Shiite district … .”
Last week, The Post published an editorial with the surprising headline, “The Iraqi Upturn: Don’t look now, but the U.S.-backed government and army may be winning the war.”
Iraq, it said, passed a turning point last fall, thanks to the drop in violence stemming from the troop surge and the shift to a counterinsurgency strategy.
The old mission was search-and-destroy operations and force protection. The new mission is protection of the Iraqi population. Many leading Democrats called the plan “more of the same,” but the change in strategy — which Obama seems to have missed — made a tremendous difference.
In the search for turning points, the Iraqi army’s Basra operation earlier this spring also marked a major change, although initially it looked like a fiasco.
With disorder and violence on the rise in Basra, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki deployed more than 30,000 Iraqi troops without fully coordinating with the U.S. command. The Mahdi Army followers of the firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr fought back. Hundreds of Iraqi army troops deserted.
But the Iraqis didn’t back down. Disloyal soldiers were fired. Ineffective commanders were relieved. Coordination with coalition forces improved. A truce was arranged and the Iraqis gained control of the city.
The highly informative Westhawk blog, written by a former Marine company commander, noted that Basra was a major turning point because it proved that the Iraqis could stand and fight and make the adjustments needed to win: “The U.S. now has a clear path to achieve its goals in Iraq with a much smaller commitment of U.S. ground forces.”
The next president will probably have an opportunity to significantly draw down U.S. troops in Iraq. If so, it will be thanks to the success of the troop surge, and thanks to President Bush’s refusal to heed critics like Obama, who was eager to throw away the hard-won gains of our troops.
Obama’s Iraq position may have helped him win the nomination. But his inability to “change” could prove a significant vulnerability in the general election.
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