New York Times: Security gains in Iraq reversible

The New York Times states the obvious point that Barack Obama ignores, unless one realizes that Obama's "end the war" rhetoric is misleading:

The changes are not irreversible. The security gains are in the hands of unseasoned Iraqi soldiers at checkpoints spread throughout Baghdad’s neighborhoods. And local government officials have barely begun to take hold of service distribution networks, potentially leaving a window for the militia to reassert itself.

The militia’s roots are still in the ground, Abu Amjad said, and “given any chance, they will grow again.”

The story keeps its focus on the Sadrist militias, but the same holds true for the AQI remnant.

The story represents another fact of the situation in Iraq that undercuts the wisdom of Obama's out-in-16-months strategy (as opposed to tactic). The strategy offers respite to our enemies in Iraq and threatens to prolong the rehabilitation process of Iraqi society.

Obama's strategy, as I've touched on before, is a political calculation that uses the facts on the ground as a rationalization--not a rationale.

First we need to get out of Iraq as fast as reasonably possible (16 months) in order to get out of the Iraqi civil war, because leaving the civil war to take its course will lead to Iraqi security forces finally doing their job. Sound far-fetched? That's because it was, and it was a position fundamentally crafted to turn sentiment against the Iraq War into pro-Obama voting regardless of the contradictory nature of the proposal. The concurrent messages were that Iraqi lives (no matter how many) are not worth American lives, and that Bush was doing it all wrong.

The facts changed. Americans played a key and essential role in curbing violence in Iraq both by AQI associated groups and by sectarian militias. The situation wasn't hopeless after all, and Bush was doing it right.

That created Obama's political quandary. His political base was not just anti-war but resistant to acknowledging the changing facts on the ground. In order to keep his base and appeal to the center, Obama would have to tweak his message.

Forget about getting our soldiers out of the civil war. Now the phased withdrawal is about getting the Iraqis to stand up and end the war. Overlook the fact that the Iraqis are already standing up and therefore do no need the added impetus. Obama's new rationale, in effect, consists of taking the final step toward victory by bringing the troops home with the war already won, albeit barely and reversibly.

Oh, and did he mention that he's not bringing the troops home after all? It recently turns out that it has always been Obama's position that the Iraq War served as a distraction from the real war on terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan. One can appreciate the imagination involved in that position by remembering the formerly robust activity of AQI. The phased redeployment will enable the new Commander in Chief to send more troops to Afghanistan.

Some on the hard left might be less than satisfied with that strategy, but who else can they vote for at this point?

Obama's moves follow the tried-and-true pattern of appealing to the party base during the primary and then appealing to the center as the general election approaches. Obama's new politics have done absolutely nothing to change that.