I know this is "Shadow Government" but when the piece is so blatantly emotional and partisan it's difficult to take it seriously. Posting on a Foreign Policy blog apparently means 'serious analysis' is optional. But that's what we're supposed to expect from Ivy League elitists?

As someone who stands slightly to the left of center of the political spectrum (no sarcasm intended, I really would say slightly left), I got an entirely different meaning from Obama's speech. While Mr. Feaver seems to have gotten the "Victory is ours!" sense from the speech, which if true would necessitate crediting the Republicans who set it up, I got a "We're getting the hell out! Thank God! It's about time!" feel from the speech. To thank Republicans for getting us out of a mess that they got us into when they couldn't even complete the getting us out process themselves is hardly a mark of statesmanship, although it may be politically wise.

Perhaps if we all agreed on what "victory" in Iraq actually meant, this would be an easier issue to navigate. Again, as a left-sided guy, Republicans seem to swing wildly between "We've won, feel free to adore us" and "Obama is losing, he must hang for this treachery". Meanwhile, the left seems to be of the general opinion "Iraq has not turned into a second Garden of Eden, this Republican war has failed".

Myself, I'll be happy when a miserable and unnecessary war finally comes to an end, even if it means leaving Iraq in a less-than-ideal situation such as quasi-authoritarianism or a weak central government. But don't expect me to thank the Bush administration when that finally happens.

Mr. Feaver, putting your partisanship aside, let's take the Iraq situation for what it really is:

The U.S. troop surge that you speak of so mightily- and to which to credit for decreased violence across the country- is much more complex than you make it out to be. It's undeniable that more U.S. soldiers in Baghdad helped quell sectarian violence to some of its lowest levels since the start of the war. But that policy was only one part of the equation. Violence also went down as a consequence of ethnic cleansing in mix neighborhoods. Shias militias (Sadr mostly) drove Sunnis out of certain areas, and Sunni insurgents did the exact same thing to Shias. With less mingling from different ethnic communities, sectarian conflict will inevitably go down...and that is exactly what happened in Baghdad.

You fail to mention the Sunni Awakening, as if the U.S. troop surge by itself could have have secured the situation without the help of Sunni tribes. In fact, if most of the Sunnis in Anbar Province failed to switch sides, the only thing that would have resulted from an extra 4,000 marines would be increased U.S. casualties. Thankfully, this didn't happen, and Sunnis turned on Al'Qaeda. But without that, it's hard to believe that the surge would be that much of a success at all. Some don't even claim it is a success anyway, because the whole idea of the surge was to provide enough peace for Iraqi leaders to solve political problems. And that sure hasn't happened.

You complain about President Obama not speaking honestly and candidly to the American people on Iraq policy. That may be true, but let's not pretend that President Bush was any different. Throughout the entire Iraq campaign- even at its worst- Bush, Cheney, and Rumfeld looked like fools in front of the cameras, touting success that wasn't there and claiming that the insurgency was "in its last throes." All three were disconnected from what was actually happening on the ground (at least publicly), which severed their credibility both with the American public and with the international community,

As far as Obama's 41 percent approval rating, do I have to remind you that Bush's approval rating was in the mid 20's as he left office?

Ohh yea, and this IS A REPUBLICAN SPEAKING.

http://www.depetris.wordpress.com

All things said, the fact remains that it wouldn't be this bad if the US hadn't gone to war in the first place, would it? Did Saddam need to be removed, I think so. Did the US do it the right way? I don't think so. What were the other options? I'm not sure.

Whatever way you look at this, like when you said the Iraqis were most to blame, there are dozens of people that would be right in standing up and saying, the Iraqis? What did they ever do except get invaded on a flimsy excuse that proved false?

You could look at it your way, Obama is failing to follow through on his promises and Iraw is spiraling down and probably will fall apart once the US leaves. Or you could say Obama is doing the best he can to limit American loss of life to a war that should never have happened in the first place. Both are right, but both only tell the partisan side of the story.

As I recall, Iraq was about as bad as it gets when Bush and his advisers finally cast about for something to save their bacon. Enter Petraeus who had a plan to things completely different. I do give credit to Bush for (finally) recognizing that what his military leaders were doing in Iraq was NOT working. but I deduct a lot of points for all the time it took him to come to that conclusion. Even a blind pig occasionally finds an acorn.

you know, pete, i have to grant you my conditional agreement on this one. It is very possible that had there been no surge, the civil war would not have abated to the degree that it has (so far). Had that abatement never occurred, Obama's political capital upon assuming office would have been totally consumed by extricating the US from the Iraq debacle. A debacle which would have continued to inflame the region and destabilized the entire region. Iran would have had massive influence, and the Arab autocrats would have been destabilized by an increased reliance of the Sunni extremists in order to maintain some influence in Iraq--thus distancing themselves further from the US. Barring the very REAL possibility that Iraq regresses to the ethnosectarian barbarism of three years ago in the next decades (a la Lebanon--just take a look at the early morning's events to see how that bloodbath turned out for Israel), the surge probably did save Obama from massive political liabilities. Nonetheless, the US's ultimate strategic goals in the region were undermined by the invasion: i.e., divide and conquer policies which produced a balance of power. Saddam was contained, didn't have weapons of mass destruction, and deterred the Iranians by way of falsely representing himself as a nuclear power. In the final analysis, Bush screwed up. You were wrong. But, on this minor point regarding the surge, I agree with you conditionally. Congratulations, George. First, you (possibly) saved yourself from the most disastrous foreign policy disaster of all time. Second, you (possibly) saved yourself from the most disastrous economic policies of all time. Besides his immigration policies, I give him a dose of credit for attempting to salvage success from the brink of failure in Iraq and with the Economy rather than bowing to popular pressure. Still, a MASSIVE failure of a president. Keep up the bad fight, Pete. I know it helps you and your cronies sleep well at night.

I'm confused by this statement in the column:

"He could have have told the truth about his Iraq strategy, that what he has pursued thus far has not been what he was arguing for in the campaign -- that would have involved the departure of all U.S. troops by mid 2008 -- but rather he has followed, in a more or less desultory fashion, a script written in the status of forces agreement negotiated by President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki."

Looking at all the available news articles during the Campaign I come up with this:

http://www.cfr.org/publication/16776/barack_obamas_plan_for_iraq.html

Published July 14, 2008
Author: Barack Obama
My Plan for Iraq

The key paragraph that I see is this one:

"As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.+

So in July of 2008, in the heart of the campaign season his plan clearly consisted of a two year draw down. Once in office the 16 month promise became a 19 month actuality. Not bad in my book.

I'm curious to how you arrived at your idea that his campaign promised an immediate and full withdraw in 2008, before he was even in office? Even if that 2008 date is a typo and you meant 2009, I find nothing that supports such an early\rapid withdraw. Thanks.

John

Jury is still out on success of Bush’s Petraeus surge in united Iraq and verdict won’t be in until a democratic government successfully completes its four or five years term after all US troops withdraw at the end of 2011 without sectarian or regional break-up and without military coup.

As for Afghanistan, Obama administration is continuing Bush’s mollycoddling of Pakistan and whitewashing the significance of WikiLeaks documents which corroborated ‘The sun in the sky’ report published by Matt Waldman just a month before.

However Obama administration can NOT wish away the reality on the ground which is Pakistani ISI’s fueling of Afghan insurgency which is causing daily fatalities of US/NATO troops in Afghanistan since 2002.

The ISI is said to compensate families of suicide bombers to the tune of 200,000 Pakistani rupees, claims Matt Waldman’s report.

Since US wants to shove under the rug the sordid saga of US financing the death of its OWN troops in Afghanistan since 2002, US deserves to be duped by Pakistan.

But then all that matters to Washington is its own domestic political compulsion, not what happens to Afghanistan.

So Obama will have his victory a la Vietnam style just like Nixon/Kissinger and Taliban government will return to power, also just like a la Vietnam style within two-three years. All the sacrifices of US military will be in vain and US government would have thrown away billions of dollars for nothing, just like Russians before. By that time Obama, Hillary and Petraeus will be gone from the scene.

Only question left will be ’will US continue to have to feed billions of dollars to Pakistan as ransom money after Taliban takeover of Afghanistan’ so that Pakistan can protect US from future terrorist attacks? And if US does not, then will Pakistan return to same old terrorism, citing US walk-away from the region just like back in 1996?

Remember the "surge" was the original strategy proposed and was discarded by the powers that be. Only after their shock and awe redux policy failed to the tune of 3000 American lives and countless deficit adding dollars did they rethink and reintroduce the "Surge" as if it were original thinking. "Oh look what I found, a new idea" . Secondly while Iraq is less dangerous now than at the height of its craziness, the jury is still out. I will be convinced of the calm when Hannity, Limbaugh, O'Really, Boehner, Gingrich, McConnell and any of the other loyal opposition emulate Colbert and actually go there. "Tomorrow is another day" has no greater and direct meaning than in the middle east.

Rik Warren

Obama's whole presidency is a missed opportunity.

What success are you talking about. The surge at best was one battle in an ongoing war. How can we claim victory if we have to leave 50,000 troops there. There is not working government. Sectarian violence is on the upswing.

Why thank George Bush, Jr. for knowingly lying to the American People about the need for the war? How has this war changed the world we live in for the better. If we would have left Saddam in power he would have helped hold Iran in check, not because he was our ally but because he was Iran's enemy. We are leaving a mess behind that is unstable and political vacuum waiting to suck us and the rest of the middle east into yet another war.

Might I suggest to the other writers that they consider that Obama's comments are not grounded in policy or politics but in his deeply flawed psychological profile?

Obama spoke against the surge, not because he was opposed to its substance, but because anything else would not give him the higher public profile he craves. Opposing the surge, for Obama, was no different than refusing to offer a solution to the gas-price problem during the campaign: his opponents had offered solutions, he would be different by not offering one.

George Bush seems to have gone into Iraq because he understood that Afghanistan was a venue that offered little likelihood for the success of his campaign for democracy as a solution to the problems posed by Islamist extremism. His optimism led him to seriously under-resource the effort which led to the horrors that followed.

We are now getting ever-deeper into Afghanistan to cover Obama's rear on Iraq. The question raised by this approach is whether he realizes that he is abandoning a conflict where there was and is some prospect for success in favor of one where there is none. If he doesn't realize, then he is engaged in a greater folly than Bush. If he does realize it, he has chosen to sacrifice the lives of American soldiers, plus additional billions of dollars, to protecting the false image he has cultivated throughout his political life. Either way, he is leading the US astray.