Why Maliki’s Endorsement Of Obama’s Timetable Is So Significant
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Foreign Policy, Iraq, McCain, WarI just posted about the new “time horizon” that the US and Iraq have agreed to, and in that post I mentioned that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki endorsed Obama’s 16 month timetable, calling it “closer to reality.”
Also, take note of the following statement from Maliki…
“The Americans have found it difficult to agree on a concrete timetable for the exit because it seems like an admission of defeat to them. But it isn’t,” Maliki told Der Spiegel.
So all this talk of moral obligation? Well, it just got flipped on its head. Now we have a moral obligation to leave them alone, and sooner rather than later.
Obviously, this puts McCain in a particularly precarious position, and the Wash Post explains why…
In speeches, town hall meetings, interviews and campaign commercials, McCain has said a timetable would provide terrorists the knowledge of how long they have to wait until American troops are gone. He has repeatedly said that setting a date for withdrawal would lead to “chaos, genocide and we will be back with greater sacrifice.”
How will he respond to this?
UPDATE:
Well, McCain’s camp did respond…and it seems like they don’t really care what Maliki said…
“His domestic politics require him to be for us getting out,” said a senior McCain campaign official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “The military says ‘conditions based’ and Maliki said ‘conditions based’ yesterday in the joint statement with Bush. Regardless, voters care about [the] military, not about Iraqi leaders.”
It’s kind of an odd statement because it appears as if they’re saying that they’re making political decisions based on what voters care about?
More as it develops…
This entry was posted on Saturday, July 19th, 2008 and is filed under Barack, Foreign Policy, Iraq, McCain, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 19th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
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July 19th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Maliki Backs Off Original Statement; Blogosphere in a Roil…
Posted by Damozel | Re: The value to Obama of Maliki’s statement (discussed here), Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars says; ‘Ooh, that’s gotta leave a mark when you make your campaign all about your foreign policy expertise.’ But Josh Marshall wonde…
July 20th, 2008 at 12:04 am
Maliki is now claiming that it was a mistranslation. http://tinyurl.com/oopsies
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:28 am
John! – Remember that “Iraq stands up, we stand down” bit?…
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July 22nd, 2008 at 11:41 am
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