Absolutely right on incompatibility of those two stances. And Obama's opponents are right that the administration largely bungled the SOFA negotiations. They are wrong, however, in arguing that a residual force would have made any difference in the long term. The speed with which Iraq is unraveling reveals exactly how far it is from the political reconciliation necessary for functioning government, much less democracy. A residual force would certainly have had beneficial psychological effects on Iraqi politicians, but these would erode with time as it became apparent how little influence these forces would have on the ground, day to day.

So yes, it was a withdrawal by necessity, not by choice. Obama is being disingenuous in claiming credit for it, and his supporters are willfully ignorant in applauding it as a policy victory. But subsequent events have thrown into stark relief that even a more durable American presence would have had little effect on the ultimate political outcome. The U.S. is better cutting its losses and doing damage control. Indeed, it would have been better off doing so years ago. I supported the surge, and drank the kool-aid that it was working. I was wrong. As it turns out, this involuntary withdrawal is a blessing in disguise that unfortunately came far too late.

On behalf of the citizens of the United States, I would like to thank all of those individuals whom -- in addition to President Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld -- helped to perpetuate the biggest fraud (WMD in Iraq) in world history: Thank you Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, Drew Carrey, Bruce Willis, Tom Sellick, Dennis Miller, Ted Nugent, Kelsie Grammar and every other lying d-bag who publicly criticized those who questioned this foolish war. We haven't forgotten your contribution to that historic blunder!

As usual, the question of whether the invasion and 8 year occupation of Iraq was ever warranted or justifiable is ignored. The deaths of over 4700 US military personnel and wounding of more than 32,000 is never mentioned either, (not to mention the death and disability of allied military personnel and many more Iraqi citizens), except to claim they somehow justify the greatest foreign policy debacle of the century to date.

The fact is that Bush did sign the status of forces agreement that set the timetable for US withdrawal, that the majority of the Iraqi citizens want the US to leave, and that the ongoing expense of the war was just going to drain more from the depleted US taxpayer's pockets. Obama's secretary of defense made an embarassing last-minute attempt to get an extension of some US forces, but - fortunately - his pathetic begging was rebuffed by al Maliki, who had his own reasons for wanting the US to leave his country. And staying longer certainly would have provoked an anti-US uprising by the Sadrists, who were willing to sit quietly as long as the US continued its withdrawal.

Obama may get the blame from the neocons for any future unrest in Iraq. He would have been dammed from that quarter whatever he did. But he did keep a promise, although not as quickly as many of his supporters hoped he would. The future of Iraq will be determined by its own people, without any largese on the part of the US. That is the way it should be. And I doubt that any Iraqi schoolchildren will ever be taught that their society actually owes the US anything in return for whatever future thet may have. Nor will the Iraqi people ever thank us regardless of how much blood and treasure we spend there.

We are well out of Iraq. It is long past time to end our endless invasions and interventions in the affairs of other nations.

You are deluded, Dr. Feaver, to claim that both sides were committed to an extended US troop presence. The US Iraq hawks clearly wanted to believe this, to avoid having to confront the reality of being forced to exit on a timeline of someone else's making. No doubt some in the Iraqi government were all to happy to indulge this fantasy. This does not mean that it was other than a fantasy.

There is no difficulty reconciling the Obama administration's negotiations focused on a limited extended troop presence with the reality that such an extension was anathema to a meaningful portion of the Iraqi governing coalition and its constituents, and that the existing agreement was an existing significant hurdle, unlikely to be overcome.

You are lame in citing supposed views of Obama supporters without being able to link to a single one. Can the views you attack really be of significant public-policy interest if the press and blogosphere are making them so quietly as to elude your efforts at detection?

Mr. Reinhardt is a bitter-ender just because he complained that Mr. Ajami's piece neglected to so much as mention that the US had no legal basis for a continued US troop presence? Such intemperate language betrays your emotional stake in the debate.

The facts are plain: Mr. Obama deserves little credit for the withdrawal, which was pre-ordained, and he deserves little blame for Iraq's current troubles, which are beyond the power of the US military to solve.

Unfortunately, exponents of the new dolchstoss - evidently including Dr. Schake and (if but coyly) Dr. Feaver - are making themselves all too plain. It is they who fail to engage arguments by realistically describing (1) how an extended US troop presence could have been negotiated; (2) what good it would do; (3) when such a presence might be ended with a different result; or (4) how an invasion that led us to the purported need to maintain US troops indifinitely could possibly be deemed to have met the criteria motivating the 2007 surge.

I never supported Bush, Cheney, or anybody they knew or anything they did. I've said it before and I'll say it again, here. The only two options in these kind of wars is to lose or lose worse. Thanks to Obama, we have stopped the losing in Iraq. Now, can he stop the losing in Afghanistan?

There is nothing loyal about this kind of opposition. As to the claimed expertise in policy making, at this late stage, please give us a break. The day of reckoning is upon us, and it is the choices that led to the useless war in Iraq that Americans need to address.

Being lied to gets all the help it can get from being stupid, but only for so long.

i Agree in Cheney, or anybody they knew or anything they did. I've said it before and I'll say it again, here. The only two options in these kind of wars is to lose or lose worse. Thanks for Sharing !
avioes venda

For most of Europe's history wars occurred between Protestant and Catholic countries, and religion, while often not the cause, was used to justify them.

It was only relatively recently that the Protestant/Catholic divide has been basically reconciled. Ask your grandparents and chances are, if they're a Catholic they hate Protestants and vice versa.

Religious toleration is critical to a democratic society, Jon Locke's "Letter Concerning Toleration" was nearly as important as his "Second Treatise on Civil Government"

Since the Arab world hasn't come to terms with it yet, a true democracy in a country that is both Sunni and Shia is impossible.

Peter Feaver and others uses the term, "war of choice" somewhat naively, I think. He does not seem to realize that he is writing about a war crime: an unjustified war, a war of aggression. This is the worst of all war crimes because it raises the possibility of all other war crimes. The US, my country, has been engaged in a war of aggression in Iraq, a war based on lies to the American people. President Obama had a mandate to end that war when he entered office. If he had done so within a few months, he would not only deserve credit for so doing, but more importantly he would have not have become a war criminal who should be tried and punished just as should his predecessor in office.

First there is no such thing as 'winning' or 'losing' in Iraq or any part of the Middle East. What the people of Iraq gained with Pres. Maliki was an opportunity to have some say in their life as affected by the government-religion of force called "Islam". Our Troops as Marines and Green Barets so completely plastered Islam's best, suicide, and young soldiers, that any any force-by-weaponry, was elimenated from Iraq. Please note, hardly 3 weeks have passed since the withdrawal of our troops - al Sadr is calling for the 'destruction of the government with the people having a say' in favor of the overweight-new-dictator-of Islam as a figure-head for Iran.

Obama doesn't have a clue re the consequences to all of the Middle East because of withdrawing our troops from Iraq. Too many Americans have to small a view of "Natural Rights" for all men because of God's Law in His Universe. Pres. Bush in his Las Vegas Emerald Hotel 'talk', outlined exactly what was accomplished, however fragile and as susceptible of disintegration as 1776 was to America. It is not easy to form a nation to a more Democracy form of government from absolute tyranny with terror of Hussain. At least in 1776, the terror May Have been less.

But in any case, Obama's Continuation of conceit, disrespect, arrogance, and ignorance with complete trust, with assent, in Islam including 'stoning' and "bearing false witness"' as his 'standard, operating procedure' here in our Nation.

and that would be spell check.

Mr Feaver's piece offers the preposterous idea that anything any Iraqi does that Mr Feaver doesn't like will probably or perhaps certainly be president Obama's fault. And he adds that anybody who feels otherwise must be a crackpot Obamaphile.

This makes clear that the writer's moral education in his childhood home, in school and in college has been largely wasted on him. What happens in Iraq done by Iraqis is that nation's problem and that nation is responsible for fixing the bad stuff to the best of its ability. The underlying Feaver idea seems to be that the Iraqis are but children who need the Great Father in Washington to give them moral guidance and when necessary, military occupation, at the Great Father's pleasure. Just like the good old days.

Iraq today and in the near tomorrows remains what it was in 2002 before the invasion: Iraq's responsibility. Things changed in 2003 because Washington was able to fool much of the world into accepting fictions about how things were in that country at that time; fictions since disproven. Which fiction would Mr Feaver like to justify a renewed US presence in Iraq?

And how would that work? We have abundant evidence that if there's anything America can do to help Iraq itself or to restore that nation's place in the community of nations, America doesn't have people smart enough to know what such actions might be, regardless of how high their title or their office.

The underlying theme of this cockamamie article seems to be Vote Obama Out Of Office Next November, and I wish Mr Feaver had included his endorsement of the Republican hopeful he favors in good time for the Iowa vote.

If the nation does throw the current president out next year we can expect all the shady warriors and foreign affairs figures of the Bush II era to be clamoring for re-employment. And we've seen just how honest and how smart those rascals can be. It was June 2005 when then-vice president Cheney told thrilled viewers of Larry King Live that the Iraqi insurgency (he said "insurgency" in preference to the more honest "civil war") was in its last throes, and that he expected it to end during the Bush II second term. It wasn't; it didn't; is the suggestion that then-Senator Obama was in some way responsible?

The origins of SOFA (as completed) are the UN resolutions driven by a congressional majority led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Pres. Obama. The outcome was written given the pledges they made while running for election.
This gave zero room to negotiate a continued presence of US troops for the Iraqi gov't. The lack of political will on the part of our gov't. to remain in Iraq left little room for the current Iraqi PM al Maliki to combine with the biggest national vote winning coalition Iraqiya Party without plunging his country into a new round of insurgency by the Mahdi Party and losing support within his own coalition.
The template for numbers of US troops staying was maxed at 30k with an immunity from prosecution clause. Too few troops to provide meaningful help with a clause that would inflame the very situation he wants to avoid.
Now there is a power vacuum that al-Maliki is seemingly willing to fill with a sectarian coalition as the safest bet for stabilizing his gov't.
Yes the POTUS owns this outcome along with the elected Congresses of 2006-2010. That question is answered. The next is what do we do now? The whole ME/CA region from Russia to Syria is in a state of flux with players that may and are responding with stopgap measures mostly based on public opinion of the moment or trying to shape it.

The very core of this exercise is to find a way to blame Obama for anything that occurs post-occupation. Little concern is shown to the forces of the US that sacrificed for this vainglorious military adventure. Frankly, the Iraqis should be held responsible for their own failures. Much of the expats who returned to Iraq post-Saddam come off as little more than opportunists who are likely to loot the treasury and flee the country should things deteriorate further. Let anyone who feels Obama is responsible for this mess explain what he should have done rather than tut-tut his decisions.