Obama’s 16 Month Plan: Slow Motion Catastrophe

Last week Senator Obama held two press conferences in one day to discuss withdrawal from Iraq. Since then, the media herd has obsessed on whether he committed a certified flip-flip.

Obama’s responses to the press weren’t a flip-flop, they were a loafer; intellectually lazy equivocations. His position is dangerous because he appears to believe that as President he can direct the military with the lose, imprecise language he uses to stir up emotions at campaign events.

The background information to understand this latest controversy is the following promise that has been on Senator Obama’s website for ten months:

Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.

At first glance this seems fairly firm. After just a bit of examination it goes flabby.

What does “build a base” mean? Is that a physical, military base? Is it a base of support? A term of art?

Al Qaeda is a guerrilla/terrorist force that eschews conventional military bases that are easily destroyed from the air, preferring to hide among the terrorized and intimidated population. What happens if Al Qaeda, predictably, fills the power vacuum left by departing Americans, by building “a base” of thousands of terrorists living among the population? Will President Obama order troops back into Iraq to fight Al Qaeda, house to house, and defeat them all over again?

What about the other factions that have attacked Iraqi troops, civilians and infrastructure? What will they do if America pulls out before completing the mission of fully preparing Iraqi security forces to pacify the country? Obama’s vacuous withdrawal proposal simply ignores these questions.

Obama’s two press conferences further blurred his position, and could be interpreted as contradicting or modifying the web-site language. In the morning he said:

I said that based on the information that we had received from our commanders that one to two brigades a month could be pulled out safely, from a logistical perspective.

From a logistical perspective, the sixteen month schedule is impossible if the plan includes bringing back all American owned vehicles, weapons, medical facilities and equipment. But Obama doesn’t address that concern.

My guiding approach continues to be that we’ve got to make sure that our troops are safe and that Iraq is stable. I’m going to continue to gather information to find out whether those conditions still hold.”

Here are two conditions not in the website version: troop safety and stability. Maintaining the current level of stability in Iraq is incompatible with announcing a withdrawal schedule that apparently will continue regardless of evolving conditions. Beginning withdrawal before Iraq has the political stability, military forces and infrastructure to resist terrorist attacks only invites those terrorist enemies to gather their strategic and tactical resources to take maximum advantage of American retreat.

At the afternoon press conference, Obama “clarified” his position:

Let me be as clear as I can be: I intend to end this war. My first day in office I will bring the Joint Chiefs of Staff in and I will give them a new mission, and that is to end this war, responsibly, deliberately, but decisively.

What does “end the war” mean? What is “the war” in Obama’s mind?

Obama’s website claims Iraq is in the throws of an on-going civil war and political leaders have made no progress in resolving any differences. If he really believes there’s a civil war, then he has to be a fool if he thnks it will end because America retreats. One wonders how he could speak to the press about maintaining “stability” if he believes a civil war is in progress.

In truth, the “civil war” label had a thread of validity before the surge but today it’s empty rhetoric, pandering to the anti-war left. The attacks against Iraqi civilians, troops and infrastructure by terrorists and criminals have declined dramatically in the fifteen months of the counter-insurgency strategies known as “the surge.” At the same time the number of Iraqi troops trained and able to go on the offensive against these enemies has dramatically increased. But the job isn’t done yet.

For years The Mission has been to, using Obama’s words, “end the war, responsibly, deliberately and decisively” by enabling Iraq’s brand new military and brand new political institutions to prevail over the enemies of the Iraqi People. Since the start of the counter-insurgency surge the military has made tremendous progress toward accomplishing this mission.

Obama’s so-called mission, an announced withdrawal of US troops, on a predetermined schedule, before the Iraqis are prepared to ensure their own security, couldn’t possibly end to the war. The war would escalate and Iraq would descend into years of unthinkably barbaric violence and chaos as Iranian backed terrorists, Al Qaeda, and various militias fought for control.

Here’s the brutal truth: “End The War” is a bumper-sticker, contrived to draw an emotional response from crowds at campaign events. An American surrender can not cause the war to end. When Obama looks into the camera and tells us, with a straight face, that a vapid campaign slogan will become The Mission of the United States Military he exposes himself as either a blithering fool, or a narcissistic personality who believes he can hoodwink everyone else with clever words.

Update:

One of Barack Obama’s media cheer leaders, ABC News, gets it: Withdrawal on a predetermined, 16 month schedule, before the Iraqis are able to maintain security on their own, is a logistical impossibility

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