Conditions
Gates is closely identified with the surge and, in tandem with Petraeus, he would probably counsel Obama to rethink the idea of unconditional withdrawal of combat forces. ~Robert Dreyfuss
If he ever believed in “unconditional” withdrawal, Obama reconsidered this long ago. That was one of the reasons why there was some controversy in early July when Obama made clear that withdrawal of combat forces would be tied to conditions and the advice of commanders “on the ground,” which is virtually indistinguishable in this respect from the long-term view of the current administration. Even earlier, he had made commitments that large numbers of “residual” forces would remain once the “combat forces” had departed. Incredibly, despite Obama’s rather impoverished withdrawal position, McCain was permitted throughout the election to make false claims that Obama wanted to engage in precipitous withdrawal without regard for conditions. It might have been a more interesting series of debates if Obama actually held some position remotely like that and had been willing to defend it, but as longtime antiwar observers already know he has never held such a position, which is why his antiwar backers never should have expected much from him.
First off Robert Dreyfuss is wrong about Gates being identified with closely with the surge. That would be Fred Kagan and the rest of the neo-cons who still believed that the war was possible to salvage. Their plans were backed by Cheney and contested by Condi Rice. Essentially Bush put his foot down and said that the surge was going to happen – how ever he did allow Condi to take ownership over the Iran issue. this was his way of getting her to back the surge. Her hesitation over the surge is well documented now and since Gates was her man, i would be surprised that he some how backed it.
What were we to make of his plan to withdraw combat troops in 16 months ? Why even mention a figure like 16 months ?
If he was really meaning to withdraw based on “conditions” why could not he have said that he wants to withdraw at the earliest possible time and not mention a specific time line like 16 months ?
Or How about the fact that Maliki essentially endorsed his withdrawal plan when they met in Baghdad in July.
But I wont blame you for your perception of what Obama wants to do with the situation in Iraq. He has sent so many mixed signals on this issue that it is so confusing and one cannot really figure out where he stands. It is very difficult to agree with the argument that he has re-considered his position to a conditions based withdrawal when he has kept harping about how Iraq war is a strategic blunder and how he alone had the judgment to warn about it right up to the last debate.
So the obvious question is this – if this war is such a huge blunder, why not commit to getting out of there as quickly as possible?
From my vantage point, Obama is some one who has no real convictions about Iraq at all. The surge has worked against his expectations and he finds it very difficult to acknowledge that this has changed his calculations upside down. I think he will settle on Gates as Defense Sec not because of Iraq but because of Iran. Gates agrees that more diplomacy is needed.
So, all that is now left is to get credit for the stability in Iraq. Now, even that is not possible as Bush has managed to get the Iraqi Govt to agree to a deal that allows US troops to remain till 2011 after which they are completely out of there.
I think Iraq is no longer going to be an issue no matter how pissed the anti war people are about the US troops not coming back in 2009 as opposed to 2011. It ceased to be an issue atleast 6 months back. What they seem to be clearly annoyed and shocked by is how Iraq has turned around in the last 2 years.
This leaves us with Afghanistan – the situation now looks promising enough in Iraq that Obama would start transferring some of these troops to Afghanistan.