Here is an outstanding analysis of Barack Obama's strategy, or as the writer calls it, a "non-strategy," for pulling out of Iraq. Dennis Byrne, in the Chicago Daily Observer, literally takes Obama apart and shows how disastrous an Obama Presidency would be in terms of Iraq. John McCain must drive this home to voters should Obama become the nominee for the Democrats:

Take his “plan for ending the war in Iraq.” “He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months.” (Elsewhere, he says by the end of 2009.) Do Obama supporters know how many troops are in a combat brigade? (About 3,500 in the Army and about 5,000 in the Marine equivalent.) Or how many combat brigades are in Iraq? (Thirteen Army and two Marine.) Do they know that those brigades account only for about 60,000 troops in Iraq? (The rest are medical, transport, maintenance and other support troops.) The drawdown, he said, will be “strategic” and done in consultation with military commanders on the ground. In other words, it will be left up to the military commanders, none of whom think that timetables and arbitrary withdrawal are good ideas. Obama doesn’t mention that they’ll have to figure out how to fight a rear-guard action.

This is ridiculously arbitrary. What makes the end of 2009 strategically important? Why not June, 2009? Or the end of 2008? This is the calendar driving strategy for the sake of the calendar. It would have been as if Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, the commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War Two, said: “Well, if we don’t reach Berlin by the end of 1944, we’ll start a ‘strategic, phased drawdown’ of our troops. That’ll force the Germans to end the war.” It’s patent nonsense.  read more »