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Obama: Avoid The Dog and Pony

Barack Obama has arrived for his much-anticipated visit to Baghdad today, along with stalwart Bush critics Sens. Jack Reed, D-RI and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. As they’ve been crying all week, the Right Wing talkers are dismissing the trip as a media love fest, designed to help Obama earn his foreign policy creds like an online […]

Barack Obama has arrived for his much-anticipated visit to Baghdad today, along with stalwart Bush critics Sens. Jack Reed, D-RI and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. As they’ve been crying all week, the Right Wing talkers are dismissing the trip as a media love fest, designed to help Obama earn his foreign policy creds like an online college degree. According to Jed Babbin at Human Events, “They are — collectively — acting as a massive “527 Group” to promote Obama from senator to president.”

He anticipates the “softball” interviews Obama will get on the road, and he is probably right. Like all media interviews of VIPs on what have become notorious Green Zone dog and pony shows, there has been very little real journalism by the mainstream, just the stuff of what one might pick up say, in Parade Magazine. The talkers like to complain that McCain never got the Hollywood treatment on his previous trips to Iraq, but they don’t acknowledge what he didn’t get, and that’s hardball interviews. That the media even called him and his fellow Republican travelers out on their attempt to make a Baghdad market out to be the state fair in Indiana over a year ago, I think was more of a testament of how dangerous it really was, else the media would’ve been too typically skittish and emasculated to call the good senators’ bluff.

Still, hardball interviews are essential and the more grilling Obama gets on his trip the better. What may be more important, however, is that he and the others ask the right questions of their hosts. Reports today indicate that Obama will be meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki and Gen. David Petraeus. He shouldn’t leave Iraq without asking the following:

1.) What exactly is a “Time Horizon”? Pundits are saying it is a compromise of Bush’s long-held position that there be no set dates for withdrawal, but administration spokespersons and surrogates keep insisting a “Time Horizon” is more like setting goals based on conditions, which sounds more like Bush’s original view, that withdrawal can’t be unconditional, and there must be plenty of wiggle room to avoid a drawn-down of troops until the US says so. We need clarification, particularly in the face of Maliki’s Der Spiegel interview, in which he supports Obama’s 16-month timeline (Maliki’s spokesman, ever on cue, rushed in to suggest his boss’ words were taken out of context). Everyone seems to be talking with public consumption in mind — who is closest to the truth?

2) To Gen. Petraeus: this month Gen. James Dubik told congress that Iraqi security forces could be “fully manned and operational” by mid-April next year. What does that mean, when only 12 Iraqi battalions out of 140 are “fully operational” and capable of independent missions today? If getting Iraqi security forces fully independent from US assistance is one of the “aspirational goals” for realizing a “Time Horizon,” how does that bode for the US getting out of Iraq before the end of the decade?

3) There has been much discussion about permanent US bases in Iraq. How many will there be? Seriously.

4) Gen. Dubik also told congress that there were “internal polls” taken of the Iraqi people that indicated an unprecedented level of confidence in the Maliki government, support for a continued US presence, an increased level of confidence in the country overall. Where are these surveys and why, if so positive, haven’t they been shared more publicly with the American people?

5) How is the State Department working with the Iraqi government to alleviate the 30 to 50 percent unemployment rate in Iraq?

6) When exactly are these provincial elections we keep hearing about? Has there even been a date set? And if not, why? We keep hearing about October 1, but why hasn’t that date been ratified by the parliament?

7.) How much can ethnic and sectarian cleansing be credited for the reduction in violence in places like Baghdad? Paying former Sunni rebels who had been shooting at our troops in the past a dollar $10 a day to come over to our side — how much should we thank them for the overall surge success and even more importantly, how strong are their alliances today? What is the US doing to ensure that Maliki’s government won’t kill the deal by denying these Sunnis decent positions in his security services and in the government? Do we really have a say?

8. What’s going on in Anbar? Its handover of US security to Iraqis in June would have been historic, but it was abruptly halted. What is going on there today?

9) What is the US doing to assist the 4 million displaced Iraqis — 2 million internally, 2 million over the border? Why aren’t more Iraqis coming home today, given the improved security (loop back to the question about sectarian cleansing). How many really have homes and neighborhoods to return to?

10) In lieu of a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the current administration and the Maliki government, word is the two sides have come to a less ambitious “bridge” agreement. Is it in the power of an Obama administration to alter it come January 20?

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