Obama and Iraq

Senator Barack Obama, who ran in the '04 primaries as an opponent of the Iraq war, gave a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday in which he joined that "Third Camp" we talked about earlier this week. Coalition troops in Iraq remain "part of a solution" in Iraq for the moment, Obama said, and should not be fully withdrawn immediately. Instead, Obama called for a "limited drawdown" of troops at the earliest opportunity to allow training of Iraqis to go forward (perhaps a drawdown similar to that plan which is reported this morning in the WaPo).

Obama urged the Administration to come clean and level with Congress and the American people: "Straight answers to critical questions. That's what we don't have right now. Members of both parties and the American people have now made clear that it is simply not enough for the president to simply say 'We know best' and 'Stay the course.'"

He's right. And I welcome his views to this debate.