If you oppose the war (based on whatever, but mostly political expediency), then you OPPOSE THE WAR!!!! You should end it! Right away! As quickly as safely possible! END IT!

Yet when dems got congress, did they vote to do that? NO! Has their nominee said he would do that? NO! What a bunch of hypocrites! Using "stability in Iraq" as an excuse? NO! Heck, that's one of the main goals of the war itself! You can't use that as an excuse to slow the end of the war! WTF!!!

Obama has taken the correct position, but for all the wrong reasons. His rhetoric on the war has to do only with his own political ambition. You can't say that about Bush, McCain, and the many republicans who have stayed the course on the war on terrorism despite its understandable unpopularity. Obama's new stance is yet another indication of the type of president we would have in him: spineless, weak and unprincipled.

"We'll be out whenever the puppetmaster pulling my strings up there says we'll be out -now that's refinement"

Is that better Mr. Soros?

Come 20 May 2010, the sixteenth month of the 44th presidency, we’ll most assuredly still have a significant combat contingency in Iraq, yet a smaller one than we now have.

And on July 4, 1977, I would just as confidently have predicted that we'd have a functioning American embassy in the capital city of our stalwart Middle Eastern ally, Iran.

Right now and for the last few months (post-"Surge"), things have been looking up in Iraq. It does indeed seem reasonable to hope that the 44th American president, be his name Obama or McCain, can draw down our forces there significantly, and that those who remain will be at less risk of injury or death on a day-to-day basis.

But "volatile" is still the single word that best describes Iraq. It's not at all hard to posit very plausible scenarios under which the Maliki government falls, and what follows is either an effective vacuum with no functioning national government or even a dramatically pro-Iranian and anti-American government. If either of those things happened, the 44th American president will be confronted with the decision whether to "re-surge" or to "bug out."

I'm not very confident about what is likely to happen in Iraq between now and, say, 2010. But I'm very confident that the instinctive reaction of a President McCain would be to stand firm, even double down, to prevent throwing away all that we and the Iraqi people have accomplished since 2003. And I'm even more confident that Barack Obama would bug out.

We ought not pick presidents based on best-case scenarios.

All of them. War is just a specific state of conflict. We can end the war at any time, simply by saying "the war is over". We don't have to DO anything. We don't have to bring anyone home or stop fighting. We just have to say it's over.

"Ah, but you know he is a Marxist as you are."

Oh, good Lord. Just STFU. You don't have the slightest clue what you're saying. Anyone who thinks I'm a Marxist has shit for brains, and not much of it.

Gabriel's Law

"I guess you were not paying any attention to what he said during the primaries."

I believe I already said I was concerned by the spin he placed on his positions during the primaries.

"He refused to meet privately or in public with the commanding general in charge."

Didn't he question General Petraeus during a congressional hearing in April?

"Obama said over and over again that he would end the war in 2009."

Ending the war happens on paper. It's all semantics; remember, Vietnam was not a war. He also made this promise in the same speech that he identified a 16 to 18 month timetable for withdrawal of combat brigades. Clearly, he intends the war to be over before all combat brigades are recalled, which is normal.

But the more normal usage of the word is to polish or perfect or, in this context, work out the details. How amusing that all this hysteria has actually settled on an emphatic re-affirmation of a policy position that hasn't changed at all.

Since the start of his campaign, Obama hasn't wavered from the policy of bringing combat troops home. And from the start he's said that conditions on the ground can affect the details, but don't change the policy.

The really curious thing to me about all this is that flip-flop criticism has always depended upon Obama not really meaning what he says - as in using "refine" as some kind of cover for changing policy. Do you think anyone will notice if it turns out that he meant what he said?

"Not one of us wants to see our servicemen and women in harm's way a day longer than they have to be. And that's why we must find the most responsible way to bring them home as quickly as possible, while still leaving the foundation of a secure Iraq that will not endanger the free world."

If Obama did not recognise the reality that managing a war requires flexibility beyond the theoretical, I would not back him for the Presidency.

Look carefully: "I have seen no information that contradicts the notion". Obama recognises something about becoming President - once you're cleared to know certain things as Commander in Chief of our armed forces, you see a different picture. He's prepared to accept that.

I am more certain that Obama ought to be our next President than ever before. I watched his position on Iraq "spin" differently during the campaign, and it concerned me. Now that I see he was spinning the same position throughout, I'm much more confident that I've thrown my hat in the right ring.

It's not a flip-flop, but it is a blunder

William's right. Very bad politics, and surprising from a machine that has been so sharp up until now. This announcement was always going to have to come at some stage. While the strategy he has outlined form the get go remains the same (withdrawal rather than continued presence), the tactics would have to be tweaked on an ongoing basis, and while he referred to this during the primary, he did so as an aside almost.

His advisers should have been making sure that this particular speech went off without a hitch. They dropped the ball, and on this subject, you just don't get a second chance.

Americans prefer bold leaders who get it right the first the first time. When President Reagan commanded, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!", he didn't come back four hours later and say, "But you don't have to do it right away if you won't have enough bulldozers west of the Ural Mountains until five years from now."

If this has been construed by some of Sen. Obama's supporters as “withdrawing from Iraq”, I think the positioning has achieved its objective: to keep options open while giving the impression that he intends to withdraw from Iraq.

From time to time Sen. Obama has also spoken vaguely about beefing up our presence in Afghanistan and redeploying the forces removed from Iraq into station nearby as an “In Case of Emergency Break Glass” force. I suspect that as the cost and diplomatic realities of these positions sink in that they'll be modified a little.