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Obama for America unveiled this video earlier today, called, “Ending the War in Iraq: A Promise Kept.” It sketches out President Obama’s opposition to the war before it began, shows his commitment to ending the conflict over the course of several years, and takes us through to this week, when he welcomed home U.S. servicemen and women at Fort Bragg.
Clearly, when it comes to listing his first-term accomplishments, Obama will put a very big check mark next to “end the war in Iraq” on his presidential to-do list. With each of the leading Republican candidates criticizing the withdrawal, and calling for an indefinite military presence in Iraq, it will be a point the president and his team will be eager to emphasize.
What I find interesting, though, is to realize the muted political impact.
I started blogging in February 2003, shortly before the war began (I was against the invasion), and along with millions of others, I was horrified by this disaster. For years, the notion of a U.S. withdrawal and an end to the war seemed like a dream. Indeed, if you’d told me in 2006 or 2007 that a Democratic president would, less than three years after taking office, bring all U.S. troops home, I would have expected it to be a huge deal, with a major bump in the polls, and pockets of national celebrations. This was, after all, the dominant issue in American politics for several years.
But the nation’s political priorities have changed dramatically in a fairly brief period of time, in large part because of the economic crash in 2008. And as a result, President Obama likely won’t receive any political boost at all, no matter how significant the development.
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zandru on December 16, 2011 12:42 PM:
"Muted Political Impact"
Well, I'm not surprised. For one thing, he took too long - librulz wanted us out by February 2009. For another, there are still undoubtedly many 10,000s of US-financed mercenaries there, who will be remaining indefinitely.
Then there's the never-ending "wah wah" from us lefties insisting that, had Iraq agreed to exempt US personnel from all laws and accountability, we'd still be there, because that's what Obama wanted.
Honestly, leaving Iraq, even to the extent that has taken place, is a big deal. But the President and Democrats will get nothing from it, because his "base" won't allow it.
Jon on December 16, 2011 12:48 PM:
I agree about the muted impact. It seems as though in this, as in many other things, it's almost as though opinion makers, and perhaps the public as well, just expect Obama to do the right thing well. There's no "news" there.
I'm not sure whether that's ultimately beneficial or not for him. I hope it is.
Montana on December 16, 2011 12:50 PM:
I think it's because so many supported the war at the time and they now want to forget that it ever happened.
Those of us who opposed it from the beginning may not be celebrating, but my guess is there's a general sense of relief in the nation.
Personally, I feel a deep sense of sadness: Thousands of lives lost (young Americans and Iraqis), hundreds of billions of dollars gone, and a nation deep in debt. Bring it on, as GWB used to say. This is his legacy.
zeitgeist on December 16, 2011 12:53 PM:
let me build on what zandru started. this is one of those cases where there really is no one in the middle of the road on this issue for Obama's cautious fulfillment of his promise to impress. Obama wont get credit from the right -- they all think this makes him a surrender monkey. The Sioux City crowd had no time for Ron Paul trying to keep us out of war with Iran. They preferred Bachmann's apparent desire to bomb anyone, anywhere, anytime.
the left also wont be impressed: it took too long, it is too amorphous, it doesn't include Afghanistan, nothing else matters as long as Guantanamo is open, it will be lost in the signing of the detention provisions of the new defense auth bill.
the masses who are not political junkies, moderates and independents who tune in to do their civic duty but don't track every promise and score squabble -- at this point care about the economy, stupid, and not much else.
square1 on December 16, 2011 12:55 PM:
It doesn't make sense that President Obama would get any sort of political bump.
This has nothing to do with my personal feelings regarding the Iraq occupation. It is based solely on the objective facts of U.S. policy:
1. The prior administration negotiated an agreement setting down a timeline for final withdrawal.
2. The current administration attempted to negotiate an extension of the timeline.
3. The current administration was unable to reach an agreement on extending the timeline for withdrawal.
4. The current administration then withdrew as scheduled.
A political bump (or drop) would only occur if there was some new information. But whatever support or lack thereof that exists for Obama on Iraq was long ago baked into the poll numbers: Republicans who think that Obama is a cut-and-run Democrat haven't changed their opinion. Democrats who wanted an accelerated withdrawal didn't get what they wanted. And Democrats who think that Obama is on the right track, got what they expected.
When a corporation releases quarterly earnings, the stock price doesn't change based upon the actual earnings, it changes relative to pre-existing expectations. Expectations were that troops would leave at the end of 2011. They left. No change in popularity to be expected.
TCinLA on December 16, 2011 12:55 PM:
The truth is the only reason Obama brought all the troops home was because the Iraqis refused to revise the Status of Forces Agreement negotiated with the Bush Administration and continue to give American GIs blanket amnesty for their crimes, like the massacre in Haditha in 2005 by the Marines, or the massacre in Baghdad by Blackwater.
In the meantime, the moron is pressing a bigger war with Pakistan, since the Imperial Wehrmacht with all its whoopee-do technology (that mostly doesn't work, like the boondoggle known as the F-35) can't defeat 25,000 ill-trained Taliban soldiers.
Let's also remember that he had to be kicked in the ass to finally support the Egyptian people in Tahrir Square, and dragged his ass completely over the revolution in Tunisia.
Any idea that the good guys on the planet are those who work for the American Empire doesn't stand up to the facts. We haven't been the good guys ever since we decided to replace Britain as the World Cop in 1945.
Obama is just as much a prisoner of Military-Industrial-Congressional-Comples imperial thinking as any other political halfwit we could install in the imperial palace, er, I mean the White House. Perhaps he's not as crazy as Gingrich, but that's a damn low bar.
CDW on December 16, 2011 1:03 PM:
I heard a story recently about a vet who was applying for a loan on a house. His credit history had holes in it and when he explained that he'd been in Iraq for the last 3 years, the person handling the paperwork said, Oh? were you on vacation?. How soon we forget when, if we ever knew.
hells littlest angel on December 16, 2011 1:04 PM:
Americans don't like to lose. We'd rather pretend we won than admit to losing.
Most pathetic "indispensable nation" ever.
c u n d gulag on December 16, 2011 1:06 PM:
Maybe if that sociopathic Tinpot Dictator Cheney and his personal malaproping, swaggering, hand-meat-puppet Little Boots, and that ancient, uncaring, inept bag of aphorisms, Rummy, and "Say Yes To Torture!" Yoo, and "Really Sleazy" Rice, and "You Played Me For A Fool" Powell, and the band of neanderthal Neocons who started it all, and all of the other malignant war mongers, including punTWITS in the MSM, were still defending themselves in front of the Hague, and not invited onto on FOX News, or CNN with Insipid Blitzer and "The Worst F'in Political Team In The History Of Broadcasting" to defend the greatest and most costly mistake in American history, we could have had some tiny sense of closure.
BUT NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This lot of Satan's spawn is still out there, scot-free, not even questioned in public, let alone indicted, tried, and thrown into the Gitmo of their own design, as they so richly deserve.
No, they're allowed to go out in public to throw more obfuscation, lies, bullshit, and propaganda, at our kowtowing, simpering MSM, (who treat what they basically allowed to happen without even a mild "But..." in response) as if the whole Iraq FIASCO, an out-in-the-open excercize in ignorance, salesmanship, gamesmanship, propaganda, arrogance, and outright stupidity and cruelty, were part of their usual he-said/she/said Sunday morning political gabfest ritual.
You want to see the problem with fucking Kansas and the other 49 states?
Look no further than a Federal government that won't try legitimate war criminals, and wont' even try!
And that the punTWITS who got it all wrong, as untouched by reality as the war criminals, are still out there openly bloviating on the air.
Letting Nixon, Reagan, and Bush I walk was nothing compared to this.
And when they grab power again, what's to stop them from trying to top this political and economic horror show?
Nothing.
And that's the lesson that they'll take away from this.
NO BAD DEED EVER GOES PUNISHED! IOKIYAR!
This nation is lost, when we allow these people and their enablers and propagandists to go out in public, instead of locking them in Super-Max prisons.
Well and truly fucking lost...
gus on December 16, 2011 1:12 PM:
Parades.
If there are parades then any bump begins with parades.
That’s when it becomes palpable to people, even those who are no where near military families or towns or bases.
I’m not sure if Obama deserves a bump or will get a bump from troops coming home. But, after years of Bring ‘Em Home! it will dawn on people what this means. That will either translate into a positive thing for Obama or it will be the most inexplicable example of apathy ever displayed by a nation that brings troops home from a war a good chunk of the nation supported, until they changed their minds.
I’m not a fan of stagecraft and I wasn’t down with this war (even though I called it happening in Dec. 2000 after someone was chosen) but the troops coming home around the start of a New Year, that’s an event that can be celebrated and should be recognized. And it could help lift the nation’s mood...a bit...until whatever reality sets in.
kahner on December 16, 2011 1:30 PM:
Despite the lack of media coverage or obvious hype, I still think this could havew a big impact in the voting booth. For those of us sitting at computers in our offices, this may seem "muted", but for the over 2 million members of the armed forces and their families I imagine its a pretty big f-ing deal (as biden might say). If most of them feel good about this (and i don't know if they do) then it could easily affect their voting decision come november.
John in TX on December 16, 2011 1:35 PM:
Gary Kamiya had a really good piece in Salon today called "What If They Ended a War and Nobody Cared?" (http://tinyurl.com/87s2gkn) that hit the nail on the head, saying that America ended this "war" precisely as it had entered it: with the nation half asleep. Other than Dittoheads and other rightwingers still boo-hooing over 9/11 and using it as an excuse to support killing people they don't like in countries they can't find on a map, the rest of the nation moved on years ago. Other than military families, obviously, most people had no direct stake in it. This invasion was started with no clear goal, had no real purpose and slogged on for so long it outlived Americans notoriously short attention spans. Plus, I think when more and more people looked at the colossal waste of it, coupled with the sheer ugliness and evil of it, they just looked away rather than deal with it. The whole invasion was/is a war crime, and the fact that Bush, Cheney and the rest of the monsters who created this disaster aren't in The Hague being charged is reprehensible.
DenverRight on December 16, 2011 2:19 PM:
"Clearly, when it comes to listing his first-term accomplishments, Obama will put a very big check mark next to “end the war in Iraq” on his presidential to-do list."
If we want to credit Presient Obama for pulling the troops out of Iraq, that's fine. But ending the war?
Wasn't this timeline merely (EXACTLY) the same as the U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, negotiated in October 2008 by the Bush administration and the Iraq government?
That 2008 agreement "established that U.S. combat forces would withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, and all U.S. forces will be completely out of Iraq by December 31, 2011."
Congratulations to Obama for implementing the previous administration's agreement.
square1 had it right, how much of a bump does Obama expect for following through on one more Bush foreign policy initiative?
zeitgeist on December 16, 2011 2:24 PM:
square1 -- apparently McCain didn't get that memo, given his fairly treasonous speech on the floor about Obama losing Iraq.
superking on December 16, 2011 2:44 PM:
It seems pretty clear that this was not Obama's preferred outcome, and I'm not inclined to give him too much credit for it. He was negotiating with the Iraqis to keep our troops there for years to come, potentially indefinitely, but couldn't get to an agreement with them. In this case, Obama did not actually keep the promise he made, he simply failed to break it.
June on December 16, 2011 2:57 PM:
But you can bet that if Obama had not ended this conflict and had not brought the troops home, it would have been item #1 in an endless march of "Why I'm Disappointed in Obama" pundit/blogger essays. Given that he has fulfilled this important campaign promise, only a "meh" at best is apparently in order.
internet tough guy on December 16, 2011 3:04 PM:
anybody who says that Bush/McCain would have complied with the withdrawal timetable is delusional.
gus on December 16, 2011 3:05 PM:
I don’t what to compare it to. The Iranian hostages being released and Reagan getting the lion’s glory, while Carter looked on, how he was a lame duck from the outset of the supposed negotions to release them? How Vietnam remained Johnson’s war even when the roots began with Kennedy and it ended in the 70s?
I just think that in the absence of overwhelming good things, anything good which happens now will go a long way. If the economy turns around noticeably, it is to Obama’s benefit. The same thing seems true when companies return to their bases and to their hometowns. The president, whoever it might be, in the world we live in now, will benefit from that kind of good event. Congress won’t, War won’t win, Bush might get....noticed....come out from wherever he is at. But, Obama is the president, the Commander in Chief, and to think he won’t remind people that is the case, that he’s had successes seems wrong.
From a campaign perspective, he has reason to do it. From a leadership perspective, he should state it to let people know “who’s in charge.” From a historical perspective, it, like other significant foreign policy events, happened on his watch and he encouraged them happening.
He may not greatly deserve accolades and won’t get that from everyone but if he does get a bump then so be it. Is it honest or fantastic for him to get it? It would have done some minor wonders for Bush if it could have pulled it off before he left office...and he couldn’t.
Jon on December 16, 2011 3:06 PM:
To all those saying Obama is merely carrying out the previous administration's (reluctant) plans: how many think they would have been actually carried out by the previous, or any, GOP administration? It's not as small a thing as you imply.
chi res on December 16, 2011 3:35 PM:
how many think they would have been actually carried out by the previous, or any, GOP administration?
Right off the bat, I'd say two--DenverWrong and SquareHead.
Next question.
DenverRight on December 16, 2011 4:10 PM:
Thank you, one and all. I sometimes forget that it is easier to pontificate about hypotheticals than to examine the facts before us.
President Obama pulled the troops out of Iraq, and I give him credit for that. He carried out the exact framework of the previously negotiated agreement.
But some here appear to give the current President a very big check mark next to “end the war in Iraq.”
As others noted, President Obama tried to renegotiate the agreement to leave troops there. At what point did he make any changes to the established drawdown timetables, or end it more quickly, as his campaign "promise" intended?
President Obama gets credit for this accomplishment. The question is how much, since it wasn't his plan.
Doug on December 16, 2011 9:56 PM:
"...there are still undoubtedly 10,000s of US-financed mercenaries there..." Zandru @ 12:42 PM
If there are, they'll be subject to Iraqi laws January 1, 2012. If they wish to stay under those circumstances, let 'em.
As I understand the problem, the desire to retain bases and troops in Iraq was based on, among other things, the fragility of the current Iraqi government. Not just the political types serving in various offices, but the ability of the government to actually govern Iraq.
I believe the final decision came down to which would cause the greater amount of destabilization in Iraq - US troops remaining or US troops leaving. The decision was made that if US troops remained the current political coalition would collapse and nothing could be cobbled together to eplace it. Conversely, if US troops left, the current government, while still facing strong opposition, would gain enough support among Iraqis to resist anything but a direct attack from outside the country; ie, Iran. If that occurred, it could, legitamately, ask for assistance from the UN, the Arab League, NATO, and/or the US and not expect overt resistance.
As for the crap about not making a big deal out of it because President Obama is "just carrying out what GWB started", I'd like to ask: Which aircraft carrier did President Obama pretend to land on to announce this?