Obama’s Iraq Decision

News broke yesterday, right before Obama’s Congressional Speech, that a decision has been made about Iraq. Obama campaigned on a 16 month withdraw date. Since taking office, apparently, he feels that 16 months is too soon and wants to extend it to 19 months.

Some may think, oh it’s just three months, that’s fine. I don’t. Obama is going back on one of his campaign promises to get the troops out of there. Furthermore, Iraqi leaders have already agreed to Obama’s timetable (which no doubt gave him a lot of kudos). Obama is basically giving the same time of withdraw that Bush gave (2011).

I know not many liberals will get on him about this decision, but I feel he went back on his word, and he deserves flack for it. I understand that until he got in there could he fully understand the severity of the situation. However, I feel that since he is going back on his word, it brings us back. It brings us back to the Bush days of “oh a few more months”, “give it another six months”, “we’ll know by X date”.

Also, I would like to point out that even after “withdraw”, we will still have residual (“non combat”) forces there. Estimates are as much as 50,000 troops. In my opinion, this is completely unacceptable.

To me, this decision is major, as I’ve been strongly against the war since its beginning. I don’t want to go back to the days were our leaders keep pushing withdraw back and back. I want to see our troops come home. I voted for Obama to bring them home.

Let’s even forget about how us antiwar folks feel for a second. The Republicans are going to have a field day. Yes, they love the result (more time in Iraq) but the bottom line is it gives them ammunition against Obama saying he went back on his word.

I hope K O does a special comment or something about this news. I’m pretty mad right now. I hope others get mad about this decision as well. We need to hold Obama accountable. I know he can’t fulfill every campaign promise, but this one is major.