On Thursday, as was reported here, Obama said he would continue to refine his policy on Iraq, which was widely seen as a softening of his promise to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible. Today, recognizing the furor that statement created, he tried to patch it up:

"I was a little puzzled by the frenzy that I set off by what I thought was a pretty innocuous statement," he said. "I am absolutely committed to ending the war."

...

"The tactics of how we ensure our troops are safe as we pull out, how we execute the withdrawal, those are things that are all based on facts and conditions," he said. "I am not somebody - unlike George Bush - who is willing to ignore facts on the basis of my preconceived notions."

Which I take to mean that if the current troop levels are promoting stability and peace in Iraq and to withdraw them will destabilize Iraq, Obama would keep the troops in. But that's what I take it to mean. It could also mean that he'll do what he always said he would and withdraw the troops regardless of their effect on conditions on the ground and that it was pointless to keep them there.

And that's the real problem, isn't it? Obama revels in these vague rhetorically brilliant statements that can mean all things to all people. Built in is the ability to read any meaning into current or previous statements that he wishes people read into them. This is one real difference between the candidates. With McCain, there is some dissembling, especially on politically touchy issues like immigration, but in large part, you know where McCain stands and what he would do. With Obama? Not so much.

Over twelve hundred U.S. Army soldiers and Marines celebrated Independence Day by committing themselves to another four years of service to the country. Gen. David Petraeus was on hand at Camp Victory, U.S. headquarters in Baghdad, as the men and women took the oath, filling an atrium in one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces to the bursting point. The troops sang "God Bless America" and heard a roll call of the states at the ceremony, and were treated to a traditional barbecue in honor of the Fourth afterwards.

Some of the troops told interviewers that the re-upped for the $15,000 bonus, but most expressed a dedication to duty and their comrades characteristic of the military. Many are on their second and third tours in Iraq, and it is a measure of their devotion that these soldiers would volunteer for more duty far from home and family.

The military has enjoyed very high re-enlistment rates throughout the war in Iraq. The large numbers of returning soldiers has helped to offset more sluggish recruitment numbers. As conditions in Iraq improve, and units are regularly rotated out of the country, the veteran troops will impart their war experience to relatively green units, helping to build an even more capable military.

I guess that Team Obama decided the Fourth of July weekend would be a great time to float the idea of refining his Iraq position. The idea is that most Americans (and hopefully media reporters) are too busy to pay attention to a very substantial shift in his Iraq stance.


GOPublius lays out the unfortunate choices of Mr. Obama:

John McCain has set a trap for Barack Obama, and its one Obama may find hard to avoid. Obama owes his current candidacy and his position at the top of 2008 Democratic ticket to his uncompromising anti-war stance. Through the fall and spring, Obama's position on the war was unmistakable, "Let me be clear: there is no military solution in Iraq and there never was...the best way to protect our security is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months, or one year - now!" As a regular part of Obama's stump speech, the freshman Illinois senator pledged, "I will end this war in 2009." Such a position worked well with the left-wing base of the Democratic Party, but over the course of the past year a funny thing has happened in Iraq - the U.S. has employed an increasingly successful military strategy, and its primary public proponent has been Senator John McCain.

...

...Will Obama campaign as the man who wishes to singlehandedly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq, or the man who flip-flopped on the central issue of his campaign and embraced Bush? ...

A year ago conventional wisdom told us that McCain's position on Iraq would surely doom him as a candidate in the general election. It now appears that being one of the few politicians that has stood firm on a single position that turned out to be correct might be his saving grace!

Which is another example of why I hold conventional wisdom with such a low regard. CW and $3 will buy you a very small (but tasty) coffee at Starbucks.

Hillary might have fared better, had she been the nominee, but unfortunately for her and the Democrats, she's not the nominee, and even if she was Obama and the left roots pulled her so far into the anti-war camp that her earlier strong position on the war in Iraq had been quibbled into meaninglessness.

With little fanfare and scant media attention, the Bush Administration released a new report on progress in Iraq to Congress in May. The report concludes that the Iraqi government has made "satisfactory" progress on 15 of 18 benchmarks established by Congress and the Administration. That is double the number of satisfactory marks the Iraqi government received in a similar report one year ago, as the troop surge was being fully implemented. The remaining benchmarks that Baghdad still has work to do in order to meet are the hardest, including disarming militias and distributing oil revenues. Still, the sheer number of benchmarks showing progress compared to a year ago is another confirmation of the success of the Bush Administration's troop surge.

Democrats in Congress do not see it that way, however. Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that Iraq would have made more progress if the United States had withdrawn, rather than add, troops. "The administration...has repeatedly missed opportunities to shift this burden to the Iraqis and appears willing to do so again," he said. "[T]here is broad consensus that there is no military solution and only a political settlement among the Iraqis can end the conflict." But the Iraqi government is increasingly providing that political solution, thanks in no small measure to the security improvements brought about by the troop surge and the growing capabilities of Iraqi Army and police forces.

Perhaps the best indicator of progress in Iraq is the slight but perceptible shift in Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama's position on the war. His top foreign policy adviser, Susan Rice, said in an interview yesterday that Obama will listen to the counsel of the commanders in Iraq, if elected, and declared the candidate's pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months of his inauguration a "timetable" as opposed to a deadline. That slight softening of Obama's position on the war reflects the growing realization that conditions in Iraq are different and that the American people realize that there is a chance for a real victory there.

A 700-page study of the Iraq war and its aftermath by the United States Army released yesterday concludes that the post-war occupation phase of the conflict suffered from under-staffing and from incorrect assumptions by commanders as to just what the Army's role would be.

"Few commanders foresaw that full spectrum operations in Iraq would entail the simultaneous employment of offense, defense, stability, and support operations by units at all echelons of command to defeat new, vicious, and effective enemies.

[The] post-war situation in Iraq was severely out of line with the suppositions made at nearly every level before the war."

That means that the Army was operating in a "liberate and go home" mindset in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad, and expected Iraqis to take control of the country in very short order.

Critics of the Bush Administration's pre-war planning will seize on the report's conclusions as proof that the president led the nation to war without adequate preparations for the aftermath. That charge is necessarily informed by hindsight, however. Everyone agrees that the post-war occupation plan turned out to be insufficient to handle the conditions in the country, but that is not proof that there was no plan.

Well, it looks like Democrats are trying their hand at "red meat" politics. As Caleb Howe noted yesterday, MoveOn debuted an ad that tugs at the barfstrings, in an effort to get people who don't mind the current level of death among Iraqis and US military personnel, to suddenly give a shit about a baby with an annoying mom.

Another group, Truth Through Action, is also trying its hand at the manipulation game, to better effect, by suggesting that if you aren't a Democrat, you yourself will soon be...trying your hand.

Here's the short film, entitled, "Blue Balled." Relax, it's rated about PG or so, maybe PG-13? Afterwards, let's relax, have a nice drink, talk things over.

Last week, MoveOn debuted a general election ad titled "Not Alex," in which a young liberal mother is tearfully terrified her toddler might one day be conscripted into the Hundred Years War by the still-surviving head of John McCain, Dictator for Life of the post Obamalyptic nightmare of the future.

OK, that might be a slight exaggeration. Suffice it to say, the worried mom seems a little confused about a number of facts. Hot Air's Allahpundit said it best:

"... mom here hasn't yet grasped that (a) President McCain won't be setting Iraq policy for the next 18 years, let alone the next hundred, (b) MoveOn's candidate of choice has himself been dropping some dark hints lately about "tactical readjustments," and (c) whether McCain and the military can have her son is, um, up to her son, not her. The left (or at least the segment that MoveOn represents) still hasn't quite accepted the idea of a volunteer military."

Dave wonders why MoveOn would use the Politics of Fear™ that Senator Obama and many other Democrats purport to despise.

Well today, Confederate Yankee writes about a response ad now online from the family of Eric Egland.

Read on ...

Issue polls indicate that the electorate generally prefers Sen. Obama to Sen. John McCain on most issues from the economy to taxes to energy policy. But one issue that the Democratic nominee and most election observers surely counted on Obama's side is not going his way. On which candidate would do a better job handling the war in Iraq, McCain leads Obama by 39-33 percent in a new AP-Yahoo News poll. Worse for Obama, however, the poll indicates that voters' preference for McCain on the issue stems from their view that he is the more experienced candidate, showing that the key McCain campaign narrative appears to be gaining traction.

One registered Democrat told AP that McCain's military experience was an overall positive for him.

"He's more experienced militarily. And I don't know if I agree with stay-the-course [Iraq policy], but I think the good probably outweighs the bad with him, experience-wise."

Indeed, it may by McCain's position on Iraq that is keeping the election close at this early stage. More than 20% of respondents who oppose the war in Iraq nevertheless plan to vote for McCain. That sentiment was best expressed by another registered Democrat, who told AP that McCain would do better on Iraq because of his military experience. "I do believe that he will do better in Iraq," she said. "Because he's served in the military and he has said we can't just pull out. ... I think we're just kind of stuck with it now and we have to finish."

The McCain campaign hopes that voters who value his experience on Iraq will give him a second look on other issues as well. On energy policy, for example, large majorities of the American people agree with McCain's call for increased domestic and offshore oil exploration. The AP poll indicates that it may not be a forlorn hope.

Anbar Province, once Iraq's wild and lawless west, is about to be handed over to Iraqi security forces by the U.S. military. Anbar is the largest of Iraq's 18 provinces and the home of some of the fiercest fighting of the war and the insurgency. Cities like Ramadi, al-Qaim, near the Syrian border, and Fallujah were once virtual no-go zones for U.S. military personnel. Now they are deemed peaceful enough to entrust their control to the rapidly improving Iraqi Army and police forces.

The U.S. poured resources into Anbar as part of the troop surge, aiming to break the Sunni-led insurgency there and in Baghdad. They found local tribes increasingly more willing to work with government and coalition forces, after years of brutal domination by al-Qaeda linked foreign militants in the region. Dubbed the "Anbar Awakening," the tribes' turn toward the coalition continues and is largely responsible for breaking the back of al-Qaeda in Iraq and for the reduction in violence throughout the country.

The handover is more evidence of the success of the Bush Administration's troop surge. Violence against U.S. personnel and Iraqi civilians has come way down in recent months, helping to secure not only Iraq, but funding for the war through 2009. Iraq has been surpassed by the economy and especially high gas prices as the main issues in the presidential race as coverage has faded from the national news and cable shows due to the improving situation there. There is still much work to be done in Iraq, reports indicate that four Americans, two troops and two civilians, were killed this morning in Baghdad. But despite these isolated incidents, it is increasingly clear that Iraq is on the right path toward relative stability and responsible governance.

Democratic and Republican negotiators have reached a tentative deal in the ongoing battle over funding for the war in Iraq. The Pentagon will receive all of the money requested by the White House for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan without restrictions, while Democrats will get some domestic measures inserted into the bill to help satisfy their political base. Most important politically for the Democrats, however, is that the deal will provide funds for the war through fiscal year 2009; thereby avoiding an election season vote on war funding. The compromise is slated for a vote in the House today.

A House source with knowledge of the deal said that Republican negotiators were able to secure the funding with no restrictions, eliminated funding for Planned Parenthood, and cut two Senate amendments from the final bill which would have added $8 billion in spending on pet projects and prevented the Bush Administration from restricting states from extending access to the the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). In return, Democrats won a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits, although they had wanted 26 weeks, and generous spending on education benefits for soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, a new GI Bill, without increasing taxes. The White House has indicated that it will sign the bill once it is passed.

On balance, it appears that Congressional Democrats, in order to avoid a politically tricky vote on the war funding this fall, gave more than Republicans in reaching the deal. Like any good compromise, neither side will be entirely happy with the outcome. But more important than the scoring of who won or lost, is the fact that the troops will receive the funding they need and deserve to continue operations in the war on terror. With violence declining steadily in Iraq, and the Iraqi government demonstrating more control over the country, interruptions in funding for the troops helping to achieve that progress could have been devastating to the growing success there. In Afghanistan, on the other hand, attacks by Taliban militants are up, and the funds are needed to help extend the reach of the government in Kabul.