The United States has announced that the war in Iraq is officially over and that troops will be completely withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the year. While Obama is quick to take the credit for ending the war in Iraq and his supporters are quick to give him that credit, people like myself are here to keep things real.
First, the war in Iraq has not ended and will not end for some time. The only thing ending in Iraq is America’s presence. Notice I didn’t say our involvement? That’s because troops will be left on our base in Kuwait just in case we’re needed back in Iraq. Secondly, Obama had nothing to do with our withdrawing from Iraq. We were in negotiations with Iraq to keep troops in Iraq. However, an agreement could not be made between the United States and Iraq and negotiations failed. Hate to rain on Obama’s and his supporters parade, but this is why we are withdrawing from Iraq, not because Obama is a conquering hero. Okay, actually I love raining on the parade, who am I kidding?
But wait a minute. Let’s say that this is Obama’s doing (although it’s not) and he deserves the credit for withdrawing our troops from Iraq. Does he really deserve the praise? For example, MSNBC’s Michael O’Brien writes, “President Barack Obama’s announcement Friday that all U.S. troops would leave Iraq by the end of 2011 marks the fulfillment of a major political promise Obama had made on the 2008 campaign trail.” Michael O’Brien wants his readers to believe that Obama has kept his campaign promise so therefore, we should applaud Obama for keeping his word right? Wrong. Obama said he opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning and he promised to withdraw the troops from Iraq by 2009 if elected President. It’s 2011 not 2009. What promise did he keep? That really doesn’t matter though because the fact is Obama had nothing to do with the withdrawing of our troops anyway.