Obama and the war in Iraq

So as Patrick at CMR is reviewing his predictions, I'd like to review one of my own. Last year on CV my wife and I battled constantly with Catholics who were willing to trade off their vote on pro-life issues for other "proportionate" reasons. They cited numerous things: Obama would fix the economy, he would make it easier for pregnant women to keep their babies, he would help the poor, and he would end the war in Iraq. They claimed all of these things outweighed the 1.7 million babies aborted every year in the U.S. They ignored Obama's intention to overturn the Mexico City policy, they ignored his voting four times against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in Illinois. They said ending the war in Iraq outweighed it.

I tread lightly in this post because I take no pleasure in the facts at hand. But I have to say that I was right. I argued more than once that Obama's plan to remove troops from Iraq at the pace of a brigade a month was unreasonable, dangerous, and deceptive. I argued repeatedly that unless stability was firmly reached in Iraq, reducing the number of troops there prematurely would place the remaining troops in greater danger and might also undermine the gains that have been achieved. I argued that Obama would end up doing almost exactly as McCain promised he would do, and that was to leave troops in Iraq until the job was finished.

But they wouldn't listen. Obama was the enlightened one. He wanted to end the war in Iraq, unlike the war-monger John McCain. He wanted to bring peace and happiness, unlike the ex-military man John McCain. Obama would do it all.

Except he didn't and he won't. He'll just tell you he will.

Tom Ricks, a senior fellow at the Center for A New American Security, in this NPR interview explains how the Obama administration is doing in Iraq what I predicted it would do, despite his campaign promises to the contrary.