Iraqi Prime Minister supports Obama’s withdrawal plan
Interesting news from the Iraqis:
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told a German magazine he supported prospective U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s proposal that U.S. troops should leave Iraq within 16 months.
In an interview with Der Spiegel released on Saturday, Maliki said he wanted U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.
“U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”
It is the first time he has backed the withdrawal timetable put forward by Obama, who is visiting Afghanistan and us set to go to Iraq as part of a tour of Europe and the Middle East.
Obama has called for a shift away from a “single-minded” focus on Iraq and wants to pull out troops within 16 months, instead adding U.S. soldiers to Afghanistan.
Asked if he supported Obama’s ideas more than those of John McCain, Republican presidential hopeful, Maliki said he did not want to recommend who people should vote for.
“Whoever is thinking about the shorter term is closer to reality. Artificially extending the stay of U.S. troops would cause problems.”
From a purely political point of view, this helps Obama by giving legitimacy to his plans. Bush and McCain have always said that we would leave if the Iraqis asked them to stay.
It also isn’t a surprise. Malaki has been hinting at this for years, and he’s repeated it often in the last month. The Bush administration tried to negotiate long-term bases, but it’s becoming clearer that the Iraqis have different ideas.
As for what’s best for Iraq, nobody knows. Malaki is certainly trying to consolidate power, and by calling for a withdrawel be blunts some of the criticism coming from Sadr.
It’s certainly a positive development from the American point of view. We cannot maintain our presence there. It’s killing our economy, and it’s hurting the efforts in Afghanistan.
The point on the impact on the American economy is important. The war was started on false premises and important people believe Bush should be prosecuted after his administration, for war crimes. But even the most jaded persons thought we attacked Iraq to get to their oil. The most ironic part of the whole war is that we have not benefitted at all or gained American control over Iraqi oil. Iraq still produced less petrol than it did before the war, which is one factor driving prices up and America is spending billions per month to maintain our presense while ironically the price of oil continues to skyrocket
The war was started on false premises? What does The U.S., Israel, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Great Britain and a few other industrialized nations have in common. All their intelligence agencies believed Iraq was an eminent threat due to WMD’s. For crissake, he used them on his own people. Who signed a resolution to withdrawal Saddam from power because he thought he was an eminent threat to our national security? That’s right, the left’s golden boy Bill “slick willy” Clinton. In fact, before the war almost every well know lift wing bleeding heart was on record talking tough about Iraq harboring WMD’s and how great a threat it was to our national security. Even Mrs. Bill Clinton, you know, the one who encountered sniper fire, agreed with what more than a dozen countries intelligence agencies were reporting.
And as usual the left wing media has spun itself another web of deceit. They just can’t help it. Maliki, has gone on record saying he never supported Obama’s position on troop withdrawal. He understands the obvious consequences of withdrawing too fast.
And as for our economy, the war hasn’t hurt it. What’s hurt American wallets is the out of control spending Bush has allowed (a liberal move) compounded by liberals incessant blocking of exploration, drilling and nuclear energy for several decades. Sure oil companies have an enormous amount of leased land, but it has come up short. We are sitting on huge reserves we could be reaping the benefits from if liberals would have agreed with conservatives and started drilling years ago. We are not even close to economically sound alternative forms of energy. Ethanol? Whatever. And besides, global warming is a natural occurrence that has nothing to do with our use of fossil fuels. People used to farm in many areas that are frozen today. That’s what science says, and what 10’s of thousands of climatologists and other experts agree with. Gore says we, I’m assuming he means humans, are responsible for global warming. What an inconvenient lie.
I cannot convince you how wrong you truly are on a blog but please do read the important book “The prosecution of George W. Bush for murder” by noted California lawyer Vincent Bugliosi. This book eloquently lays out the case for putting Bush in prison after his presidency.
Former Serbian President Karadzic was recently arrested for his war crimes and if there is justice, Americans will wake up to the crimes perpetrated by Bush. Bush should finish his years in a prison cell in Texas so he can think about the evil acts he committed and let’s be fair, even if our courts, so dominated by right win nuts, refuse to prosecute Bush, the God that Bush claims he worships will certainly send Bush to the fiery pits of hell on the day of his judgement so in the end, justice will be servied.
Our courts dominated by right-wing nuts? Our courts, including the Supreme Court are unfortunately overflowing with left-wing bleeding hearts. Just look at court rulings across the country. I am going to buy and read the book you reference. I would like to recommend “Men in black: how the supreme court is destroying America.”
Failure to enforce the constitution on top of leniency is a product of liberalism. The next presidency is a battle over appointing possibly 2 -4 supreme court justices. Our nation cannot tolerate any more outrageous rulings by these 5 liberal buffoons legislating from the bench. We have a constitution, it needs to be followed.
Court rulings is the only way the left can force their ideals, because the majority of the U.S. disagrees with liberalism. For crissake, the left can’t even get a radio show to stay on the air. And now that there’s been competition for 10 years liberal news channels are struggling for ratings.
If liberal iseadls were popular radio and TV wouldn’t be such a problem. Barac will go down in flames. You can’t win a campain on emotion. There needs to be substance. Barac is like the next boy-band. Nice marketing but no talent.
According to MF, the majority is always correct. I suggest you read the Federalist Papers regarding the tyranny of the majority and the need for separation of powers. There’s a reason we have the Bill of Rights. It’s to protect our liberty. Conservatives like you only care about protecting rights you care about, like gun rights, but then you go crazy when the court protects rights like free speech. You may want the Religious Right telling you what you can read and look at, but I don’t, and I want t a Supreme Court that will protect the Bill of Rights.