Obama on the surge

In an interview with Bill O'Reilly on FOX, Barack Obama finally admitted that the surge worked.  But admitting that it worked does not mean that it has his support, even now. 

The troop surge in Iraq has been more successful than anyone could have imagined, Barack Obama conceded Thursday in his first-ever interview on FOX News’ “The O’Reilly Factor.”

As recently as July, the Democratic presidential candidate declined to rate the surge a success, but said it had helped reduce violence in the country. On Thursday, Obama acknowledged the 2007 increase in U.S. troops has benefited the Iraqi people.

“I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated,” Obama said while refusing to retract his initial opposition to the surge. “I’ve already said it’s succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

Obama opposed the troop surge and its focus on a new counterinsurgency strategy and voted against it in the Senate.  He justified that vote and said he would vote against it again if he had it to do over, because in his view it was reasonable to imagine it would fail.  Glenn Reynolds makes the apt observation:

Actually, I think it succeeded in ways that John McCain anticipated. And General Petraeus, who was mocked by Obama-supporting MoveOn as "General Betrayus."

Actually George Bush expected it to succeed as well, and fortunately it was George Bush, not Barack Obama, who was the decider.

Comments

[JR]

Even as he admits it worked, he gives no credit to those who said it would work and makes no admission that he was wrong. Typical Obama. No thanks.