Obama Interferes In US-Iraq Agreement

In direct interference in US foreign policy and the execution of the war in Iraq, Barack Obama today told the Iraqi foreign minister, according to the New York Times’ Caucus blog report,

While the Bush administration would like to see an agreement reached before the summer’s political conventions, Mr. Obama said today that he opposed such a timetable.

“My concern is that the Bush administration, in a weakened state politically, ends up trying to rush an agreement that in some ways might be binding to the next administration, whether it’s my administration or Senator McCain’s administration,” Mr. Obama said.

According to Obama, “The foreign minister agreed that the next administration should not be bound by an agreement that’s currently made.”
What else could he say when confronted with such effrontery by someone not the president who might be.

The CBS report on the phone conversation doesn’t think it’s significant enough to mention this part of their conversation, nor that regardless of the progress that’s been made Obama says he’s firm on withdrawing US troops quickly. Jenifer Rubin at Commentary’s Contentions blog, however, correctly sums it up: “Great Surge, Let’s Quit.”

The Washington Post’s editorial today says of the agreement,

It means that Iraq, a country with the world's second largest oil reserves and a strategic linchpin of the Middle East, just might emerge from the last five years of war and turmoil as an American ally, even if its relations with Iran remain warm. So it’s hard to fathom why Democrats in Congress have joined Ayatollah Khamenei in denouncing the U.S.-Iraqi agreements even before they are written….

Ed Morrissey comments,

So why haven’t the Democrats shown more enthusiasm? They would have to admit that they were wrong about the surge, wrong about Maliki, and wrong to declare defeat fourteen months ago. Democrats from Barack Obama down have insisted that the US should abandon Iraq as a failed mission rather than adjust to better strategies. Had the Bush administration listened to them, Iran would already be in charge of Iraq through Moqtada al-Sadr.

Another example to add to the many that Barack Obama is a dangerous poseur.