The Washington Post is pulling out all the stops today in an extraordinary bid to camouflage Democratic presidential prospect Barack Obama's obvious pirouette on his Iraq position. The Post headline reads, Candidates Refine Iraq Stances. For Obama "refine" means he says he will now condition troop withdrawals on the security situation in Iraq where before he promised an unconditional drawdown immediately upon taking office as president -- should that unfortunate eventuality actually occur.
Obama spent most of last week explaining his remark that he would "continue to refine" his Iraq proposals -- which was widely interpreted as a softening of his promise to end the war and as a general-election shift to the center.
Obama, egged on by a raucous audience, said on Tuesday that he has always held centrist views -- not only on Iraq but also on faith and what he called "personal responsibility."
"The people who say this apparently haven't been listening to me," he said. "And, I have to say, some of them are my friends on the left and some of the media. I am somebody who is no doubt progressive."
He is, without a doubt, progressive. A true progressive knows that the promotion of leftist views requires a certain flexibility. For now, it's important for Obama to appear somewhat centrist in his stance. The true progressive understands this and understands that the centrist position is crucial for Obama to get himself into office. Then he will be free to "refine" his position once more and swerve back to the left.
But as a political newcomer Obama is a relative unknown. His left-wing base can't be sure that he's lying when he says his plan to withdraw from Iraq depends Iraq's stability. Enter the Post, to offer what help it can. Unfortunately the Post is equally uncertain, so it offers the next best thing. It accuses Republican John McCain of similar "refinement." In the teaser under the headline the Post claims,
McCain, Obama scramble to clarify their visions for Iraq in the face of changing events on ground.
In Washington Post reporting, balance is paramount. If Obama executes an abrupt about face, the Post feels an obligation to come up with something, anything, that can be remotely construed as a McCain turnabout. Are you ready? The McCain campaign was "scrambling," according to the Post, when a foreign policy adviser speculated that the recent Iraqi demand for a troop withdrawal timetable is not a change in their position.
On Tuesday, McCain's top foreign policy adviser declined to criticize Maliki, and his campaign sought to portray those comments as consistent with the Republican nominee's long-standing position. "Senator McCain has always said that conditions on the ground -- including the security threats posed by extremists and terrorists, and the ability of Iraqi forces to meet those threats -- would be key determinants in U.S. force levels," senior adviser Randy Scheunemann said.
In fact the Iraqis have said that any timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops would depend upon the security situation in Iraq.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq will not accept any security agreement with the United States unless it includes dates for the withdrawal of foreign forces, the government's national security adviser said on Tuesday.
But the government's spokesman said any timetable would depend on security conditions on the ground.
Not only are the dates subject to security conditions, the Iraqi's say the timetable itself is dependent on them. Again, from Reuters:
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh, speaking on al-Hurra television, said it was an Iraqi demand to know when foreign forces would leave.
"Will this be through a timetable, a timeframe or time horizon? It depends on the situation on the ground. I think this will determine the dates or will affect whether it is possible to put (the departure) under a timetable."
So the Iraqis would like to discuss timeframes, which McCain has never thought were a good idea, and still doesn't, and the Post says it's a "refinement" in McCain's position.
Meanwhile, Obama has come face to face with reality. A U.S. defeat in Iraq at the hands of al Qaeda, the defeat that Democratic party leaders have predicted and worked towards for so long, has become the distant unreachable star.
On the left, though, they are determined to soldier on. Their candidate of hope, who wooed them with promises that he would immediately abandon Iraq, has predictably veered to the center, backing away from his earlier stance. In his current stance he says we must withdraw carefully. On the left they know he has to say this, but their uncertainty remains. Do they have the audacity to hope he's lying?
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