Obama Still Discredits Surge; Admits Al Qaeda in Iraq

In an interview with Terry Moran of ABC News, Obama was asked whether he can now admit that his view of the surge was wrong. Obama discredits American troops' success, instead giving credit to other factors. From Marc Ambinder:

In an interview with ABC's Terry Moran, Obama said that he "did not anticipate, and I think that this is a fair characterization, the convergence of not only the surge but the Sunni awakening in which a whole host of Sunni tribal leaders decided that they had had enough with Al Qaeda, in the Shii’a community the militias standing down to some degrees. So what you had is a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops. Had those political factors not occurred, I think that my assessment would have been correct."

Moran noted that Obama had claimed that the surge "would not make a significant dent in the violence."

Responded Obama: "In the violence in Iraq overall, right. So the point that I was making at the time was that the political dynamic was the driving force between that sectarian violence. And we could try to keep a lid on it, but if these underlining dynamic continued to bubble up and explode the way they were, then we would be in a difficult situation. I am glad that in fact those political dynamic shifted at the same time that our troops did outstanding work."

So Obama now admits Al Qaeda was, and is, in Iraq (reversing his previous position that we should leave Iraq because Al Qaeda isn't even there). Second, he says that his position would have been correct, if the facts ended up being different...

"But," asked Moran,"if the country had pursued your policy of withdrawing in the face of this horrific violence, what do you think Iraq would look like now?"

Obama said it would be hard to speculate. "The Sunnis might have made the same decisions at that time. The Shii’as might have made some similar decisions based on political calculation. There was ethnic cleansing in Baghdad that actually took the violence level down," he said.

So Obama's plan might have actually worked if we tried it. And it was merely coincidence that the militias stood down and the Sunnis stood up as U.S. troops were increasing their presence. OK...and this guy is supposed to be a serious potential commander-in-chief?