Despite Withdrawal Plans, Candidates Spar on Iraq

September 18, 11:47 AMCongress ExaminerIgor Derysh

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Photo Courtesy of Huffington Post

Hey! Remember Iraq? Yes, that is still going on.

In fact, the issue pops up from time to time as the candidates stump throughout the country.

As part of the Examiner's week-long coverage of the War in Iraq, today we look at the role that Iraq has played on the campaign trail and where it is headed once the next President takes office.

Perhaps the candidates have both flip-flopped on certain issues throughout the campaign but one thing that they have remained consistent on is the small discrepancies with one another's Iraq policy.

McCain, who has always been an advocate for more troops, more time, argues that the United States needs to stay in Iraq as long as it takes. This is the general conservative view of the war; stay the course until most of your enemies have gone and blown themselves up. Assess conditions on the ground. Then pull out, leaving some semi-permanent bases throughout the country.

McCain has said, however, that he would expect troops to begin withdrawal by 2013.

Obama, on the other hand, proposes that the United States begins to finalize combat operations soon after he takes office. He has been quoted as saying that he wants all U.S. troops withdrawn within 16 months of his taking office, spring of 2010. Obama and the Democrats believe that ending combat operations quickly would force the Iraqis to regain control of their country sooner.

Regardless of what your opinion on the war is, these two plans have become more detailed, more comprehensive and more accepted as the campaign has dragged along. They may have also become entirely obsolete.

As the public's interest in Iraq has dropped, so has coverage of it. While the economy was crashing, oil prices were rising and the Dark Knight was tops at the box office, conditions in Iraq changed. So did the Iraqi mindset.

No longer were the Iraqi leaders going to allow the United States military an indefinite stay in the country. Officials began calling for a U.S. withdrawal in Iraq, a story that went entirely under reported in the news media.

And so, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and President Bush began to negotiate a comprehensive accord that would ultimately set the U.S. strategy until the end of this military operation. Bush pushed for ambiguous "aspirational goals" while Maliki pushed back with an almost definite withdrawal by 2010.

What came about was one of the few real compromises that you see in politics.

The U.S. and Iraq agreed that, assuming that conditions on the ground continue to get better, the U.S. military would end most of its combat operations within a year (earlier than even Obama proposed) and withdraw their troops by 2011 (One year later than the time table that both Obama and al-Maliki pushed for and two years earlier than McCain's most conservative estimate).

The accord must still pass through the many chambers of bureaucracy before it is officially approved.

One thing that these negotiations make certain, however, is that Bush intends to leave a lasting legacy before he goes home to Texas. A legacy that would include signing an agreement that would dictate the U.S. involvement in a foreign nation long after he leaves office.

This would mean that no matter who wins the Presidential election, their hands would be virtually tied on one of the most major issues that the next President will have to deal with.

Tomorrow, this rather-short Iraq series wraps up with a look at another under reported story throughout the campaign. For John McCain, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin; more than just bragging rights are on the line in Iraq.