Like that whole Canada / NAFTA thing, only this time dealing in lives and insinuating himself into the government of a country no one has told him he wouldn’t be running, even if elected President. BECAUSE OF THE IMPERIALISM!
Amir Taheri, NY Post:
While campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.
According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.
“He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington,” Zebari said in an interview.
Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops – and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its “state of weakness and political confusion.”
“However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open.” Zebari says.
Though Obama claims the US presence is “illegal,” he suddenly remembered that Americans troops were in Iraq within the legal framework of a UN mandate. His advice was that, rather than reach an accord with the “weakened Bush administration,” Iraq should seek an extension of the UN mandate.
While in Iraq, Obama also tried to persuade the US commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, to suggest a “realistic withdrawal date.” They declined.
Obama has made many contradictory statements with regard to Iraq. His latest position is that US combat troops should be out by 2010. Yet his effort to delay an agreement would make that withdrawal deadline impossible to meet.
[…]
[…] the 2010 deadline fixed by Obama is a meaningless concept, thrown in as a sop to his anti-war base.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Bush administration have a more flexible timetable in mind.
According to Zebari, the envisaged time span is two or three years – departure in 2011 or 2012. That would let Iraq hold its next general election, the third since liberation, and resolve a number of domestic political issues.
Even then, the dates mentioned are only “notional,” making the timing and the cadence of withdrawal conditional on realities on the ground as appreciated by both sides.
Iraqi leaders are divided over the US election. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani (whose party is a member of the Socialist International) sees Obama as “a man of the Left” – who, once elected, might change his opposition to Iraq’s liberation. Indeed, say Talabani’s advisers, a President Obama might be tempted to appropriate the victory that America has already won in Iraq by claiming that his intervention transformed failure into success.
Maliki’s advisers have persuaded him that Obama will win – but the prime minister worries about the senator’s “political debt to the anti-war lobby” – which is determined to transform Iraq into a disaster to prove that toppling Saddam Hussein was “the biggest strategic blunder in US history.”
Other prominent Iraqi leaders, such as Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi and Kurdish regional President Massoud Barzani, believe that Sen. John McCain would show “a more realistic approach to Iraqi issues.”
Obama has given Iraqis the impression that he doesn’t want Iraq to appear anything like a success, let alone a victory, for America. The reason? He fears that the perception of US victory there might revive the Bush Doctrine of “pre-emptive” war – that is, removing a threat before it strikes at America.
Despite some usual equivocations on the subject, Obama rejects pre-emption as a legitimate form of self -defense. To be credible, his foreign-policy philosophy requires Iraq to be seen as a failure, a disaster, a quagmire, a pig with lipstick or any of the other apocalyptic adjectives used by the American defeat industry in the past five years.
Yet Iraq is doing much better than its friends hoped and its enemies feared. The UN mandate will be extended in December, and we may yet get an agreement on the status of forces before President Bush leaves the White House in January.
Much respect for the netroots!
At any rate, expect Taheri to be savaged by white, coastal lefty bloggers for being insufficiently knowledgeable about the “disaster” that is Iraq — after all, it’s doubtful he reads much of Think Progress, or parses Lancet studies, so how could he even know that the US is using chemical weapons on children, wiping out nearly a million people all told, and yet still losing the war. In the meantime, though, note that he at least cites and names his sources — and that those Iraqis named are equally as uninformed about the US loss.
Brown people. Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.
I bring this up only because tomorrow we’ll likely be treated to the inevitable NYT counter — which will name “some high ranking military officials,” etc., in an attempt to show that…well, who really knows? After all, that’s up to Obama.
I’m sure his camp will send out a the appropriate memo.
*****
Oops. Looks like Darleen already covered this.
****
update: related. (h/t N.O’Really)
“At any rate, dxpect Taheri to be savaged by white, coastal lefty bloggers for being insufficiently knowledgeable about the “disaster†that is Iraq  after all, it’s doubtful he reads much of Think Progress, or parses Lancet studies”
Plus, isn’t Amir Taheri, Iranian? He doesn’t know shit about Arab matters. Let him tell us about Persian shit and stuff. Poseur!!!!eleventythousands!1!1!1
Why are Democratic Senators and Representatives always exempt from the Logan Act?
If this story aboout Obama gets any legs, it’s gonna fall into a pattern with this piece of Palin’s convention speech:
“We tend to prefer candidates who don’t talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.”
I predict this story will be ignored in all the major media outlets.
And yet they worship the quicksand he walks in.
I agree with Mr. Pink.
I can understand why Sen. Obama made the request he did to the Iraqi government. At that time he saw his election as a shoe-in and did not want to be bound by an agreement made by the Bush administration, or be seen as breaking an agreement that had just been made. He wanted to be the one to set the time-table, so it makes sense that he would want to delay the negotiation of the agreement for a few months in order to set the time-table for a quick withdrawal.
Not only will they ignore this they will probably end up writing front page stories on Tina Fey’s impression of Sarah Palin as well as more hit pieces on her. Cause you know people want this election to be decided on the “issues” and all.
The point is, Mikey, he wasn’t anything other than a candidate and shouldn’t have been dealing at all with the Iraqi govt.
But he’s got his own seal. And some columns. And a lovely speaking voice.
Drudge linked it. But who sees Drudge, huh? Feh, no-one of any consequence, for sure, right? And it’s all red “WALL STREET MELTDOWN” at Drudge anyhow. FNC isn’t a major news network and besides, Rupert owns the crappy NYPost so’s he’s just pushing his own book, so whatever, forget that. Real NYers don’t buy and read that pos rag. So, not to worry, no one (who matters) will know.
Still, it is good to see that Sen. Obama understands how to differentiate between important interests (his) and lesser interests (the USA’s) in matters of life and death.
>>But he’s got his own seal. And some columns. And a lovely speaking voice
…and millions of Hindus
If you want to see this on TV or in a newspaper just change it to Palin instead of Obama having these talks with Iraqi officials when she was over in Kuwait. Just say it on a couple of left wing blogs and in about 2 days it will be on the cover of the NYTimes. I am sure they do go thru multiple painstaking layers of fact checking consisting of right clicking a mouse and hitting cut and paste.
The point is, Mikey, he wasn’t anything other than a candidate and shouldn’t have been dealing at all with the Iraqi govt.
I said I understood why he did it. I didn’t say I agreed with it.
However, this has become accepted in Washington over the past thirty years or so, and stopping it will be very difficult – egos, independent power bases, and all that. It may even be that many in Congress believe that they have the legal right to do this.
I think the prime recent examples have been Rep. Pelosi in Syria earlier this year and Reps. McDermott, Bonior, and what’s-his-face in Iraq before the war in 2003.
…wait, wait. October surprise? I can’t wait until the rest of our diligently right-wing news media dig deeper into this one.
Cade: Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable
thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should
be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled
o’er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings:
but I say, ’tis the bee’s wax; for I did but seal
once to a thing, and I was never mine own man. […]
Sir Humphery: And will you credit this base [D]rudge’s words,
That speaks he knows not what?
“FNC isn’t a major news network and besides, Rupert owns the crappy NYPost so’s he’s just pushing his own book, so whatever, forget that.”
So I guess the network with the highest ratings bears no semblance to, ya know, an actual news channel, because it has the audacity to espouse overt conservative viewpoints amidst the wasteland of leftist garbage spewing daily from CNN, NYT, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, PBS, NPR et al.
“the biggest strategic blunder in US history.â€Â
Bullsh$t.
Tony
South Haven,MI
I have to wonder if the reason these senators are not busted for doing independent negotiations with foreign powers is that their fellow congresscritters — GOP included — want to keep this kind of thing as an ace in the hole for their own side.
Which, if it’s true, is yet another abomination. Would McCain/Palin root it out? They’d better!
First, I’d like independent confirmation of this… because it’s a freaking huge charge someone else needs to get the quote from Zebari to verify.
Then, prosecute Obama. Hey, it doesn’t have to be an “October Surprise” if he gets sent to jail for 2-3 years does it?
Maybe the Junior Senator from my State would like to extend my tour here, you know, just to make sure he looks all the more decisive when he would have me rapidly redeployed later on?
Sedition !
But…But…But…O! insists that we not question his patriotism !
HE’S A TRAITOR !
He’s no patriot and McMav’s not off the mark when he says that O! would rather lose a war than the election…
He doesn’t give a damn how this country is viewed abroad as long as it plays into his electoral aspirations!
I guess that’s part of his new kind of politics…
You can’t deny, that’s some major-league nuance.
The left has already begun to secure the flank by attacking the authors credibility- calling him a liar- and linking the most damaging quotes to a neo-con think tank paying for his speaking engagements.
Oh, and pointing to Reagan.
I wish he’d go be president of the Germans. That would make everybody in the whole world happy.
And, really, isn’t the happiness of the whole world his point?
Show us proof. Sounds like Iran-Contra redux only as a lie and spin.
If sourced testimony isn’t proof, what would you like instead, muffler? Maybe we can subpoena his diary!
Dear Diary,
Today I tried to get the Irakkkis (sp?) to hold off in getting troops out so that I can say it was me who sped up the process, once I’m elected.
This would, in truth, likely “delay” the return of troops from Iraq — but for a good cause. Getting me elected.
Is that wrong, dear diary?
…
I’ll take your silence as a “no.”
Peace out”
Jeff–the Obama Diaries, could be good front page stuff.
Just sayin’
Obama would say or do anything to get elected. If elected, he would bring change all right … he would change everything that over 200 years of American history and tradition has achieved. He would have no allegiance to our country’s laws or customs. America would soon become a third world country with a totally weakened ability to defend itself. Since Obama talked his followers into believing and submitting to blind faith, instead of reason, Obama disciples are so emotionally invested in their messiah, that even if truth and facts are presented to them, they simply refuse to believe it. LIke lemmings, they would rather follow Obama off a cliff, than to accept the fact that he has been using them to achieve his personal ambitions. No Wright, no Farrakhan, no Rezko, no Ayers, no mean Michelle, NOBAMA !!!
From this AFP article, the Obama camp’s response to Taheri’s charges:
But Obama’s national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said Taheri’s article bore “as much resemblance to the truth as a McCain campaign commercial.”
In fact, Obama had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a “Strategic Framework Agreement” governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office, she said.
[So let me get this, straight? You deny Taheri’s charge that Obama urged the Iraqi’s to stall the SFA, but you admit that Obama said that the Iraqi’s “should not rush…until after Bush leaves office? Is that about it? Gotcha. —sdferr ]
In the face of resistance from Bush, the Democrat has long said that any such agreement must be reviewed by the US Congress as it would tie a future administration’s hands on Iraq.
“Barack Obama has never urged a delay in negotiations, nor has he urged a delay in immediately beginning a responsible drawdown of our combat brigades,” Morigi said.
“These outright distortions will not changes the facts — Senator Obama is the only candidate who will safely and responsibly end the war in Iraq and refocus our attention on the real threat: a resurgent Al-Qaeda and Taliban along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border.”
Oops, sorry, this.
I believe a few prosecutions will settle that issue.
The story is sourced and has been confirmed, Obama has some explaining to do.
If McCain is able to put this into simple terms (Country First) for the general audience, Obama would lose 5-10% of his support overnight.
This is a game changer.
In fact, Obama had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a “Strategic Framework Agreement†governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office, she said.
[So let me get this, straight? You deny Taheri’s charge that Obama urged the Iraqi’s to stall the SFA, but you admit that Obama said that the Iraqi’s “should not rush…until after Bush leaves office? Is that about it? Gotcha. —sdferr ]
Sdferr – They are breath taking in their double-speak, no?
“How dare you accuse him of doing precisely what he did!”
I like the part where the O! flack says that Taheri’s story bears “as much resemblance to the truth as a McCain campaign commercial.â€Â
Maverick should send a note thanking them for noticing.
JD, my conjectured solution (t.i.c.) to the confuzzelment or resolution of the dilemma is at “backstory” 47.
obama will be the downfall of this country!
this is only my opinion
I was for Obama but after checking some of his information out. I find he is not truthful and he has lost my vote.