The last U.S. combat troops exited Iraq and entered Kuwait this week, officially bringing an end to coalition military action in Iraq. President Obama marked the occasion with some remarks at Andrews Air Force Base followed by further remarks at the White House where he attempted to draw parallels between returning soldiers and his own impasse over the payroll tax holiday extension. Obama has already begun adding lines to his speeches reminding voters that he “ended the war in Iraq”, as he promised during the 2008 election and I expect that he and his surrogates will continue pushing this theme right up until the 2012 election.
The problem of course is that Obama did not end anything; he simply continued his practice of “voting present” by leaving George W. Bush’s policies in place. During the campaign, then candidate Obama promised to end the Iraq war, a war he continuously referred to as stupid, before the end of 2009. He also promised to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, end extraordinary renditions and generally reverse the Bush Administration’s policy of “violating the sovereignty” of foreign nations and toppling Middle Eastern Dictators with whom the United States disagreed. As we have seen, Guantanamo remains open and drone strikes against individuals, and even American citizens, inside the sovereign borders of other countries, continue. Obama has now also pulled even with Bush in the number of foreign regimes toppled. Obama even continued Bush’s grand strategy of pushing for increased democratic processes and regime change across the broader Middle East
This is not to debate the value of such policies, rather, I am simply pointing out that Obama ran as the anti-Bush, accepted his Nobel Peace Prize, and then continued or expanded most of Bush’s policies related to the War on Terror and homeland security. He simply changed the names and gave some speeches to distract his followers, a strategy which seems to have mostly worked. This hypocrisy is particularly apparent in Iraq. Before George W. Bush left office in January of 2009 the United States formally signed a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the Iraqi Government. The agreement covered the disposition of U.S. forces in Iraq and laid out jurisdictional areas of authority for the Iraqi military and police and U.S. forces with respect to insurgents, crime and reconstruction.
More importantly, the SOFA dictated two important things. One was that U.S. forces would turn over Iraq’s cites to Iraqi forces, redeploying inside large forward operating bases and switching to a secondary role to the Iraqi military with respect to the insurgency by the end of 2009. The second was that U.S. military personal would leave Iraq by Dec 31st 2011. I find it slightly off putting to hear Obama seeking credit for ending the Iraq war when he simply sat on his hands and let the people and policies George W. Bush put in place run their course. I explained this in better detail a few months ago, along with the reasons Obama will not likely get his expected Iraq bounce.
One last point about Iraq and the Middle East is that even the supposed withdrawal from Iraq is smoke and mirrors. We are leaving behind an “embassy staff” of 17,000 personnel. The average staff size at our other embassies around the world is a hundred or so. Our embassy in Iraq is essentially a garrison town that will continue to cost billions of dollars a year and have a full complement of “security personal”. No wonder the CATO institute referred to this as less an embassy and more a “viceroy’s staff”. The U.S. will also continue to maintain a large troop presence on station in Kuwait to respond to emergencies in the region. U.S. officials are seeking to significantly beef up this force but thus far the Kuwaiti government has not been warm to these proposals.
I doubt Obama’s cynical attempts to sell himself as a peacemaker will work beyond his narrow band of hard core supporters. Though many on the left took Obama at his word regarding his promise to immediately end the war in Iraq and dismantle the military and security apparatus built up during the Bush years, most of them will never vote Republican anyway so Obama risks little by angering this group. Similarly, they will not abandon Obama even as he expands domestic surveillance, detention and interrogation beyond anything Bush attempted to pursue because they are too committed to what they imagine being an Obama supporter tells people about them. Just as Obama attempts to use the debt debates to starve off funds from the military in favor of his welfare state agenda while keeping the actual cuts at arm’s length; Obama seeks to enjoy the expanded scope of powers of the war on terror and homeland security state while appearing to oppose them.
Obama is hoping most Americans will not understand the nuances surrounding this issue outlined above and so will see him as a moderate straddling the left and the right. It makes political sense in this scenario that he would publicly attack Bush, and apologize for America’s “past mistakes” while quietly allowing the policies to continue. The problem for Obama is that enough Independents are likely to have access to the truth and few will fall for the lies Obama is selling.
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