Friday, February 29, 2008

Other People Noticed Obama's Answer

Steve Huntley in the Chicago Sun-Times:
"It began with a question to Obama during the Democratic presidential debate Tuesday. Obama has pledged to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq and was asked if he reserved the right to go back into Iraq. He responded that "if al-Qaida is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad."

"The next day McCain mocked Obama, ''I have some news. Al-Qaida is in Iraq." Obama fired back, ''I do know that al-Qaida is in Iraq and that's why I have said we should continue to strike al-Qaida targets. But I have some news for John McCain. There was no such thing as al-Qaida in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq."

"So what is Obama's Iraq strategy? It seems to be that he knows al-Qaida is in Iraq but he's going to pull out anyway. But if al-Qaida establishes a base in Iraq, he will go back in. Does that sound confused to you? Me, too."

4 comments:

Robert C. said...

I can imagine a situation in which we're targeting specific Al Qaeda operations and/or people without maintaining a full or even partial occupation of Iraq.

Anyway, the argument for staying in Iraq isn't that Al Qaeda's there. If the surge is working and if the situation is getting better, then let's stay--if it's going to get better quickly enough for that to be feasible.

Stephen said...

We can have more than one reason for being there.

dcat said...

If this is the best argument Obama's detractors have against him, I'm looking forward to the fall. Desperation, meet Steve Huntley, Steve Huntley, meet Desperation. You two make for a nice couple.

dcat

Stephen said...

If the Obama position makes sense to you, please explain it to the rest of us.