Yesterday Barrack Obama presented a very comprehensive plan for our withdrawal from Iraq. Here is what he had to say:
"Let me be clear: there is no military solution in Iraq, and there never was. The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq’s leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year – now. We should enter into talks with the Iraqi government to discuss the process of our drawdown. We must get out strategically and carefully, removing troops from secure areas first, and keeping troops in more volatile areas until later. But our drawdown should proceed at a steady pace of one or two brigades each month. If we start now, all of our combat brigades should be out of Iraq by the end of next year."
Going on he explained that how he sees the Iraqi government and the challenges for Prime Minister Maliki. Again proposing a solution to the issue:
"The problems in Iraq are bigger than one man. Iraq needs a new Constitutional convention that would include representatives from all levels of Iraqi society – in and out of government. The United Nations should play a central role in convening and participating in this convention, which should not adjourn until a new accord on national reconciliation is reached."
In addressing the regional diplomatic crisis that has been created by the current administration, he proposes the following:
"Conventional thinking in Washington says Presidents cannot do this. But I think the American people know better. Not talking doesn’t make us look tough – it makes us look arrogant. And it doesn’t get results. Strong Presidents tell their adversaries where they stand, and that’s what I would do. That’s how tough and principled diplomacy works. And that’s what we need to press Syria and Iran to stop being part of the problem in Iraq."
Obama also directly addressed the President and Vice President on the issue of Iran:
"We hear eerie echoes of the run-up to the war in Iraq in the way that the President and Vice President talk about Iran. They conflate Iran and al Qaeda. They issue veiled threats. They suggest that the time for diplomacy and pressure is running out when we haven’t even tried direct diplomacy. Well George Bush and Dick Cheney must hear – loud and clear – from the American people and the Congress: you don’t have our support, and you don’t have our authorization for another war. "
Bush continues to warn that the consequences of withdrawing our troops would include sectarian slaughter and a mass refugee crisis. But, as Senator Obama says, "These are not the consequences of a future withdrawal. They are the reality of Iraq's present."
More from Obama's speech today:
"The President would have us believe there are two choices: keep all of our troops in Iraq, or abandon these Iraqis. That is a choice that I reject. By acting as if the humanitarian catastrophe is not yet underway, we have shirked our responsibility to help those who have been so harmed by this war. We cannot continue to put this burden on our troops alone. I’m tired of this notion that we either fight foolish wars or retreat from the world. We are better than that as a nation."
Senator Obama will establish an international working group dedicated to addressing the Iraqi refugee crisis, increase aid for refugees by $2 billion, work with Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt to boost access to social services for refugees, and also work to create safe haven for internally displaced Iraqis.
He'll also work with the international community to prevent genocide and to hold potential war criminals accountable:
"Iraqis must know that those who engage in mass violence will be brought to justice. We should lead in forming a commission at the U.N. to monitor and hold accountable perpetrators of war crimes within Iraq. We must also put strict conditions on U.S. assistance to direct our support to those who want to hold Iraq together – not those who are tearing it apart. The risk of greater atrocities cannot deter us from doing what we must to minimize violence in the long-term. As we drawdown, we must declare our readiness to intervene with allies, to stop genocidal violence."
This is how we turn the page in Iraq.
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