Obama's Iraq Timeline Could Grow Longer

The Associated Press is reporting that President Obama is now considering a 23-month timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq, in addition to his campaign-promised 16-month timetable.

Before going on, I want to say up front that I applaud the President for being sensible enough to listen to his military leaders. I speculated before the election that if Mr. Obama won he would probably opt for a more cautious approach to Iraq than the one he outlined while running for President.

This bit from the AP is particularly important: "Under either timeline, the U.S. would hope to leave behind a number of brigades that would be redesigned and reconfigured as multipurpose units to provide training and advising for Iraqi security forces, one official said."

By changing the configuration of units a bit, you can call them anything you want. But you can be assured that whatever they are called, they will retain some combat capability. If they didn't, they wouldn't be able to protect themselves, American diplomatic personnel, or logistics organizations that the Iraqi government still relies heavily on.

"The concept of the stay-behind training and advising brigades has been well developed...."

Exactly. It started under President Bush, who recognized that some presence in Iraq would be required for a long time to come.

"Obama must weigh a number of risks in deciding how fast to pull out the 14 combat brigades that are now in Iraq, including the political risk associated with abandoning his campaign pledge to get out within 16 months."

I would rather him accept political risk than the risk associated with pulling out of Iraq too early.

"The pace and sequencing of a troop pullout will have implications for preserving recent gains in reducing violence in Iraq. An erosion of security could in turn halt progress toward political reconciliation, raising once again the prospect of widespread sectarian warfare and a new crisis for Obama."

Isn't that what the Pentagon, and the former President, have been saying all along?

"Also at issue is how to ensure proper protection for U.S. civilians, such as State Department members of military-civilian teams supporting Iraqi economic and political rebuilding, as the U.S. military presence shrinks."

Am I the only one that thinks this sounds familiar?

"The fact that Obama did not immediately order his generals to begin withdrawing - as some might have expected, given his emphasis during the campaign on refocusing the U.S. military on Afghanistan - is evidence that he recognized, even before assuming office Jan. 20, the dangers of a precipitous withdrawal."

The dangers of a precipitous withdrawal. Where have I heard that before?

Look, the point of my comments here is not to take a shot at the President. He is doing the wise thing: he is listening to the experts, his military commanders, and he knows that running for president and being president are two entirely different things.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090206/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq