Obama Endorses McCain's Iraq Position

As his week-long foreign trip concludes, Sen. Barack Obama appears to be coming around to the Bush Administration's, and Sen. John McCain's position on troop withdrawals from Iraq. Obama, who has been promising to end the war as his first act in office if elected, said for the first time in an interview with Newsweek that the pace of withdrawals should be dictated by conditions on the ground.

NEWSWEEK: In Iraq, it's not new that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has wanted to take control of his own country. But there's always been this gap between his assessment of his abilities and American commanders' saying he's not up to it. As president, faced with that difference between what he says he can do and what the commanders say he can do, how would you choose between them?

OBAMA: Iraq is a sovereign country. Not just according to me, but according to George Bush and John McCain. So ultimately our presence there is at their invitation, and their policy decisions have to be taken into account. I also think that Maliki recognizes that they're going to need our help for some time to come, as our commanders insist, but that the help is of the sort that is consistent with the kind of phased withdrawal that I have promoted. We're going to have to provide them with logistical support, intelligence support. We're going to have to have a very capable counterterrorism strike force. We're going to have to continue to train their Army and police to make them more effective.

NEWSWEEK: You've been talking about those limited missions for a long time. Having gone there and talked to both diplomatic and military folks, do you have a clearer idea of how big a force you'd need to leave behind to fulfill all those functions?

OBAMA: I do think that's entirely conditions-based. It's hard to anticipate where we may be six months from now, or a year from now, or a year and a half from now.

This represents a dramatic shift for Sen. Obama on Iraq. He had been pledging to complete troop withdrawals within 16 months of his inauguration. This new position acknowledges the necessity of a continued U.S. presence beyond that and seems to take into account the wishes of commanders such as Gen. David Petraeus, who Obama met with on his recent visit to the country.

The McCain campaign issued a press release in reaction to the interview, sarcastically praising Obama for moving toward McCain in his Iraq position.

"John McCain has always held the position that any withdrawal from Iraq must be based on conditions on the ground. With the incredible success of the surge, which John McCain advocated, it is increasingly likely that U.S. troops will be able to withdraw with victory in hand. John McCain had long urged Barack Obama, who opposed the surge, to return to Iraq in order to see the immense changes in the security situation there since his last visit. Now that Obama has finally met with General Petraeus, it appears that he has also come to the conclusion that troop levels in Iraq must be based on the conditions on the ground."

Since winning the Democratic primary, Sen. Obama has been slowly adjusting his positions to the political center for the general election. This is a time honored tactic among politicians of both parties. Many observers have been anticipating a similar shift in Obama's Iraq position. But, until now, the Senator has maintained his insistence on a relatively rigid timeline for U.S. troop withdrawals. In the week before he visited Iraq, Obama drew criticism from McCain for announcing his Iraq plan before observing the conditions there.

Now that Obama has visited and met with the generals in command and the Iraqi government, he appears to be leaving himself some wiggle room with his new found belief in conditions-based withdrawals. But this change in position, should Obama follow through on it, would leave the Democratic nominee in trouble from his supporters on his political left, who voted for him over Sen. Hillary Clinton largely because of his initial opposition to the war and his unequivocal pledge to end it. Together with the controversy over his canceled visit to meet wounded troops in Germany, Obama's trip is coming to a close with controversies among both his detractors and his base of support.