Obama’s Iraq policy, the reality and election slogans

A study pub­lished on “A’raa Hawal Al-Khaleej” (opin­ions on the Gulf) [paid reg­is­tra­tion, but I have the full arti­cle here] before Obama’s inau­gu­ra­tion called “Obama’s Iraq pol­icy, the real­ity and elec­tion slogans”.

You will be sur­prised, how the writer had fore­seen Obama’s with­drawal plan from Iraq, the split opin­ion among the “Democ­rats”, and the future plans.

I will leave you with main points of the article:

Obama’s con­tra­dic­tory character

- It seems that exter­nal pres­sures could push Obama to adopt a direc­tion that is not con­sis­tent with the wishes of those who elected him, which will lead to the divide of his own [Demo­c­ra­tic] Party …. Obama will focus on the national issues to con­tinue to win the votes of his party…

The fact is that Iraq-war has become an inter­nal issue in Amer­i­can soci­ety; Obama will work to bal­ance the U.S. inter­ests to con­tinue the pres­ence in Iraq and his promises to pull the troops out in less than six months.

Obama’s unex­pe­ri­ence in for­eign pol­icy mat­ters, espe­cially regard­ing Iraq, makes us expect that he would be more involved than expected.

His pre­de­ces­sor had been able to turn Iraq over the years, to put the Iraqi state at the fore­front of the [Amer­i­can] mil­i­tary con­fronta­tion against inter­na­tional ter­ror­ism…. Obama blames the Iraqi gov­ern­ment and the par­lia­ment for the wors­en­ing secu­rity and polit­i­cal situation.

The role of Obama’s advisers

- Obama’s selec­tion of his aides came in con­tra­dic­tion to his elec­tion promises of pulling out of Iraq within six­teen months ….. The major­ity of his advis­ers refuse a quick Amer­i­can with­drawal from Iraq … The six­teen months are not enough to secure the U.S. inter­ests in Iraq and the region.

For exam­ple, the Vice-President Joe Biden and Hillary Clin­ton, Sec­re­tary of State refuse a quick with­drawal from Iraq or to set a timetable .. Biden con­di­tion on the Pres­i­dent before he accepted his post as Vice-President is to be con­sulted in all impor­tant deci­sions relat­ing to for­eign policy.

The with­drawal from Iraq

- Unlike Bush Admin­is­tra­tion, Obama acknowl­edges the dif­fi­culty to ignore the polit­i­cal solu­tion in Iraq impos­ing mil­i­tary solu­tions only.

He wants to give the Iraqi gov­ern­ment more free­dom to achieve gen­uine rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, threaten the Iraqi gov­ern­ment with phased withdrawal.

Obama’s posi­tion from the Iraqi government

Obama blames the Iraqi politi­cians of refus­ing the national rec­on­cil­i­a­tion for per­sonal and regional pres­sure rea­sons. There­fore, this “blame” strat­egy will lead to more ten­sion between the com­po­nents of the Iraq polit­i­cal equa­tion, and may take the new Iraq to the brink of explosion.