Obama, McCain And The Iraq Deal

By Cernig

I've a couple of posts over at Crooks and Liars today on the impending Iraq deal, mutterings of an Awakening revolt, McCain's need to do a swift 180 and Obama's excellent statement that's going to make it so difficult for "Eight Houses" to do that.

Now that the deal is being leaked by Iraqi officials - and includes demands that any new “status of forces” deal be for only 3 years and to stipulate all US troops out of Iraqi urban areas by 2009, Obama has pinned McCain to the wall with a statement that notes that even the Bush administration has come around to Obama's way of thinking and defines "success" in Iraq as the Iraqi's asking the US to leave.

Worse for McCain, the Maliki government is clearly signalling that it is getting ready to declare armed Awakening groups illegal and the received wisdom is that the latter will express their displeasure by returning to violent insurgency. McCain’s beloved Surge - which he has bashed Obama for not having the "judgement" to support - won’t have accomplished a lasting reduction in violence and Bush will have already committed the US to substantial withdrawal in accordance with Obama's "judgement" too. Could McCain’s Iraq policy get any more tattered?