Barack Obama

Turning the Page in Iraq: Obama’s New Plan

Senator Obama has responded to the report on the progress of the surge in Iraq, delivered to the House and Senate earlier this week by Gen. Petraeus, and President Bush’s consequent address to the Nation proposing more time for the military to accomplish their mission. His response is a clear, well thought out, and reasonable plan for changing the mission in Iraq to a primarily diplomatic and humanitarian one.

The “Turning the Page” speech that Obama gave in Clinton, IA on September 12 outlines Obama’s view of the current military mission in Iraq, the current direction of our Middle East foreign policy, and his plan for a new strategy in our approach to foreign policy in the Middle East, and a new mission on which our military and monetary assets can be focused; a diplomatic and humanitarian one.

A more detailed document describing the plan is well worth reading. And then there is this post on the Obama HQ blog today, Q&A with Samantha Power, that is very interesting and informative. Samantha Power is a professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and a current member of Obama’s foreign policy team. This Q&A session reveals a bit of the behind the scene process that was used by Barack to craft his plan. Excerpts from this post below.

When Obama came on the scene, I was floored by his combination of deep, ingrained principle and intellectual rigor. It was unusual to meet a person who didn’t simply accept and regurgitate received wisdom, but who pushed back. And when I then watched him inspire Americans into believing that they could be a part of making change, I was further impressed. Principle, rigor, and inspiration don’t usually come in the same package. And given the gravity of the world’s challenges at present, they seemed urgently needed.

What deserves emphasizing about Barack is not simply that he had the judgment and prescience to oppose the war when his leading rivals in this race lined up behind the administration, but that he was prepared to stand up and criticize the invasion while he was fighting for his political life in his campaign for Senate. Today, because the war is deeply unpopular, it’s easy for people to say ‘oh, good for Obama, he opposed the war, everyone opposes the war.’ It befits all of us to go back in time and reflect on just how marginalizing it was for him to make the choice he did.

Barack Obama moves us away, again and again, from the false dichotomies that pervade our politics. In the Iraq debate right now it often feels as if you have, on one side, the President and his supporters who are in total denial about what’s happening on the ground. They claim that this catastrophic war can all be turned around by US troops, and they warn of the calamitous consequences of withdrawing – sectarian violence against civilians, heightened Iranian influence, an al Qaeda foothold, without ever so much as acknowledging that these are the present realities in Iraq, precipitated by the US invasion and occupation.

Obama is busting out of this false dichotomy, and saying, responsibly, “look, we need to begin withdrawing immediately, we were totally wrong to go in, but instead of simply asserting there won’t be any strategic or humanitarian consequences to our exit, let’s begin right now to do all we can to mitigate those consequences.” Closing our eyes and ears and suspending thought about withdrawal until it occurs isn’t smart or humane, so can we begin to do consequence mitigation now? That means planning a counter-terrorism residual force, bringing in international partners, using what leverage we have in Iraq and in the region to ensure minorities are less vulnerable when we leave, talking to our foes to try to neutralize their negative influence, helping neighboring countries shoulder the mounting burden of this war, etc.

This plan reflects Barack’s ability to take responsibility for difficult challenges — to not wish away complications but embrace them and try to resolve things as best he can. I think it reflects, on a micro and macro level, his longstanding belief that none of the essential transnational problems that exist on the horizon—counter-terrorism, non- proliferation, you name it—can be solved by military force alone. He recognizes that we need a surge in political action, a surge in diplomacy within Iraq when it comes to bringing the Sunni on board, and it isn’t US troops who should be responsible for that surge in diplomacy. For too long we have asked the US military to bear the burden of stabilizing Iraq. They have done what has been asked of them, but it is long past time to acknowledge that Iraq’s stabilization hangs not on the US military’s performance but on Iraqi political compromise. However unlikely that compromise seems at present, the only way to increase the odds of it happening is to use all the tools in the American toolbox – diplomatic, political, and economic.

He understands that the humanitarian dimension of Iraq – which the Bush administration hasn’t dealt with at all — is fundamentally a strategic dimension, a national security dimension. Barack knows that we need to get beyond the false dichotomy between our interests and our values. The refugees are a moral problem but they are also a strategic problem. That fragile sectarian demographic balance in the region is something that will implicate US interests for generations to come. And we’re not going to get support from Iraq’s neighbors if they don’t feel like they’re getting support from us in grappling with the colossal domestic challenge of managing the arrival of two million Iraqis.

The fact that he’s of the world — that he’s half-Kenyan, speaks a fair amount of Indonesian, speaks pidgin Swahili, is comfortable in the world and doesn’t have an insular perspective — is going to make a huge difference in terms of his ability to do diplomatic work and listen to other perspectives. It doesn’t mean he will defer to those perspectives, but if the next president is to pursue the US national interests in a globalized world, the president better understand those perspectives. As he has made clear in the debate over whether we should talk to our enemies, Obama knows that by being in the room he will not sacrifice his principles. He knows that he can be tough while being in the room. And he is tired of the counterproductive habit of lumping US foes together. He wants to pry them apart, but to do so, we have to improve our understanding, and we have to lose our reputation for arrogance.

© 2007 Life is an Ongoing Process.