Feb 28 2009

President Obama Acknowledges President Bush’s Success In Iraq

 

We have beaten al Qaeda and its allied Islamo Fascist forces in Iraq with the help of a newly liberated and democratic Iraqi People. I have said it many times, but it bears repeating. After 9-11 al Qaeda was the future of Islam, infamous for having delivered a massive blow against the Great Satan.

But after a long hard fight in Iraq (as President Bush did claim it would take, forget about any exuberant aides) we have a totally different future to ponder and work for and cherish. al Qaeda and its brutal allies – such as the Mahdi Army (backed by Iran) – were on their heals and losing ground after the first invasion. The Iraqis were voting and starting to change their views of where they wanted to go. So these thugs used the only leadership tool they know – brutal and bloody violence.

al Qaeda went on such a bloody rampage against the Iraqi people – all to get the co-dependent liberal media to post pictures of a winless war (funny how these media allies also are facing extinction) – that they created a historic backlash called ‘The Awakening”. It started in Anbar Province in the fall of 2006, the center capitol of al Qaeda’s promised modern caliphate. In 2007 President Bush beat back the naysayers and wimp-out quitters in Congress – with the help of allies like John McCain, Gen Dave Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker – and we met the The Awakening with The Surge. 

And over time we cleared out the rats nests with the help and support of the Iraqi people, and defeated al Qaeda’s plans for taking over the Middle East. In the end, al Qaeda was not Islam’s future but – to many Arab Muslims – Islam’s greatest enemy. The Great Satan was now ally and protector, while the Islamo Fascists were the new face of Satan.

As the Wall Street Journal notes today, President Obama has (indirectly, so as to not unhinge his liberal supporters) paid homage to the efforts of President Bush, to the point he is willing to protect our hard earned success by providing a reasonable exit strategy:

Though the headlines from the President’s speech mostly focused on his promise to end all U.S. combat operations in Iraq by August 31, 2010 — and withdraw U.S. forces fully by the end of the following year — there was considerably more to it than that. For starters, Mr. Obama again acknowledged that our forces in Iraq had “succeeded beyond any expectation,” not least his own.

Mr. Obama was also rightly generous in his praise of outgoing U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Generals David Petraeus and Ray Odierno, “two of our finest generals.” All three men were Bush appointees, and all were instrumental in devising, advocating and implementing the surge strategy that Mr. Bush pursued amid the derision of his critics, including then-Senator Obama.

President Obama also recognized that Iraqis themselves have made significant political progress, and that “there is renewed cause for hope in Iraq.” That’s a far cry from his message of last July, when he told reporters, after visiting Iraq, that “So far, I think we have not seen the kind of political reconciliation that’s going to bring about long-term stability in Iraq.”

But more important than Mr. Obama’s implicit repudiation of his own positions as a candidate (and the implicit vindication of Mr. Bush’s position, to say nothing of John McCain’s) is his decision to maintain a sizable U.S. military presence in Iraq — in the range of 35,000 to 50,000 troops — past the August 2010 “withdrawal” date. That “transitional force” is roughly the size of the U.S. military presence in South Korea through the Cold War. And its mission, involving training of Iraqi forces, U.S. force protection and “targeted counterterrorism missions,” largely describes what the U.S. is already doing in Iraq.

Most of Iraq’s provinces are under full Iraqi security control, and U.S. forces will be out of all Iraqi cities and towns by this July, as stipulated in the Status of Forces Agreement that the Bush Administration concluded with the Iraqi government last year. By making it clear a sizable U.S. force will remain in Iraq, Mr. Obama is showing a commitment to Iraq’s continued democratic progress and should help deter a revival of ethnic tensions. He’s also making clear the strategic advantage of having a stable U.S. ally in the heart of the Persian Gulf.

The sincerest form of political flattery is to retain the policies of your predecessors with determination and respect. He could have been more blunt in acknowledging his policy salute to Bush (even if he had to be convinced behind closed doors by the Bush policy allies). But I will accept this form of recognition, because it does protect the gains we paid for with our dearest blood. And in the end, that is what is most important.

14 responses so far

14 Responses to “President Obama Acknowledges President Bush’s Success In Iraq”

  1. OLDPUPPYMAX says:

    In his speech to the hand picked crowd at Camp Lejeune, Hussein constantly stated that “we” had done this and “we” had accomplished that. This Marxist thug is nothing if not arrogant and hypocritical. He opposed the war, opposed the surge, declared the war lost and Iraq in a hopeless state of confusion. But of course, “we” no longer remember any of that.

  2. kathie says:

    On top of what OLD said, does anyone remember how his party and his mentor characterized General Patraeus? I do!

  3. Terrye says:

    If Iraq turns into a stable ally of the United States it will be in spite of and not because of Obama.

  4. crosspatch says:

    Obama isn’t going to have the time or energy to deal with Iraq. He has a new war on his hands.

    Obama Declares War on Investors, Entrepreneurs, Businesses, And More

    I suspect his proposed initiative to eliminate the itemized tax deduction in addition to eliminating the Bush tax cuts are going to be enough to cause considerable blowback.

  5. crosspatch says:

    Oh, and then there’s this war

    On Thursday, the White House released its federal budget proposal–declaring war on United States energy producers.

    Obama just isn’t going to have the bandwidth to fight foreign enemies, his hands will be full waging war on America.

  6. kathie says:

    Obama is fighting a war against George W. Bush and everything President Bush held dear, and this country holds sacred. It is very sad to watch the destruction.

  7. crosspatch says:

    What he is doing is penalizing success and rewarding failure. His spending is designed to go toward things that are pretty much useless as far as creation of wealth is concerned.

    He is taking the contents of the US Treasury and tossing it into a fire and when the wealthy don’t make money, there goes your tax revenue. It doesn’t matter if you increase tax rates if their earnings drop faster that taxes rise.

    Taxing the rich is fine if you can make sure you have a system where people can get rich in order to be taxed. What Obama is doing is killing the goose that lays the eggs.

  8. AJStrata says:

    CP,

    Obama has executed another naive act – he is taking on everyone as if the President has unchallenged power. The Liberal dems are power drunk, ready to challenge one and all.

    As they say – bring it on. The more this comes out in the open the faster and farther their support will drop.

  9. gwood says:

    Crosspatch is so right to point out that there’s a war on energy, it is part and parcel to the war on capitalism.

    Allow me to point out a small silver lining in this cloud we see hanging over our heads. If we look at an electoral map, we see that the blue areas are largely highly populous cities in the northeast, and on the west coast. These are areas that all have decidedly higher living costs, and therefore higher incomes. The tax increases Obama is placing on the “rich” therefore hits these people hardest. I can live quite well on far less than $250k here in Lynchburg, Va., one of the lowest cost of living areas in the country, but can blue-staters in NYC, Chicago, or LA? I don’t think so.

    So what we have here is that Obama, in making employers, entrepreneurs, and investors (the “rich”) the declared enemy of tax policy, is inadvertently targeting precisely those who brought him to power. They will be hit first, and they will be hit the hardest by increased taxes.

  10. crosspatch says:

    The difference between Strongy Approve and Strongly Disapprove is now down to 8 points at Rasmussen.

    One gets the feeling that the change Obama has in mind isn’t quite the change people were looking for.

    What is most interesting is that the “Strongly Approve” numbers, while trending down, isn’t trending down as quickly as the “Strongly Disapprove” numbers are trending up. This would indicate that he maintains the support of the key “Kool-Aid” drinkers but the center is becoming disillusioned.

  11. crosspatch says:

    The difference between Strongy Approve and Strongly Disapprove is now down to 8 points at Rasmussen.

    One gets the feeling that the change Obama has in mind isn’t quite the change people were looking for.

    What is most interesting is that the “Strongly Approve” numbers, while trending down, isn’t trending down as quickly as the “Strongly Disapprove” numbers are trending up. This would indicate that he maintains the support of the key “Kool-Aid” drinkers but the center is becoming disillusioned.

  12. VA Voter says:

    We’ll be seeing comments on Rush’s comments to CPAC momentarily, I presume.

  13. crosspatch says:

    VA Voter … already have. CNN says Rush represents “Angry White Men”. They have made it a racial issue right off the bat rather than a political issue.

    CNN Political Analyst William Schneider says Rush Limbaugh represents “Angry White Men” like he did in 1994 when he was the prophet of “Angry White Men”

    Any time you oppose Obama’s politics or economics, you are going to be portrayed in racial terms. It is sick, and again despicable. The Democrats are simply despicable. Now Obama is talking about a “global” new deal where the American taxpayers will be given the opportunity to bail out EVERYONE on the planet. Isn’t that nice?

  14. crosspatch says:

    Uh, oh. Here we go again.

    The man who is President Obama’s newly minted urban czar pocketed thousands of dollars in campaign cash from city developers whose projects he approved or funded with taxpayers’ money, a Daily News probe found.

    Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion often received contributions just before or after he sponsored money for projects or approved important zoning changes, records show.

    Most donations were organized and well-timed.

    In one case, a developer became a Carrion fund-raiser two months before the borough president signed off on his project, raising more than $6,000 in campaign cash.

    In another, eight Boricua College officials came up with $8,000 on the same day for Carrion three weeks before the school filed plans to build a new tower. Carrion ultimately approved the project and sponsored millions in taxpayer funds for it.

    Carrion resigned as borough president effective Sunday and begins his new job as director of the White House Office on Urban Policy Monday.