Which "recommendation" will Obama take?

[Dhalgren]

Or will he go in some third direction?

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/328987

"The battle for Barack Obama's mind on the issue of getting out of Iraq unfolded in public yesterday, as two members of his Iraq advisory task force presented conflicting versions of what to do about the Bush Administration's nation-wrecking program in that country.

The scene was the second annual meeting of the Center for a New American Security, a center-right Democratic think tank.

<snip>

The two speakers were Colin Kahl, who chairs the task force and who works at CNAS, and Brian Katulis, a member of Obama's task force and a thinker-in-residence at the Center for American Progress. Neither Kahl nor Katulis was speaking for Obama, but the stark conflict in their views says something important about the differing opinions Obama may be getting from inside his team.

Kahl is one of the authors of CNAS' new report, "Shaping the Iraq Inheritance," which proposes a policy called "conditional engagement" for Iraq that would leave a large contingent of American forces in Iraq for several years, and which would make America's presence in Iraq contingent on political progress in Iraq toward reconciliation among the country's ethnic and sectarian groups and parties. Katulis is an author of CAP's Iraq plan, "Strategic Reset," and other studies that propose to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq, except for a small force to protect the American embassy. Katulis' CAP plan also suggests a halt in the U.S. training of Iraqi government forces, while Kahl and CNAS want to continue to train the Iraqi security forces long after U.S. combat forces are withdrawn.

<snip>

Kahl criticized Katulis' plan, implicitly, by putting it in a category he calls "unconditional disengagement." In his paper, Kahl describes that as a "pledge to unconditionally disengage from Iraq by withdrawing all troops on a fixed, unilateral timetable." His plan, "conditional engagement," would "negotiate a time horizon for U.S. redeployment as a means of pushing Iraqi leaders toward accommodation and galvanizing regional efforts to stabilize Iraq." In its reports, CNAS has proposed leaving several tens of thousands of American forces in Iraq. In yesterday's presentation, Kahl showed a slide that defines the U.S. military mission in Iraq, after combat forces are withdrawn, to include "counter-terrorism, force protection, train, advise and provide critical enablers for the ." The withdrawal of these forces is "to be determined, based on conditions."

Katulis, responding to Kahl, said that what CNAS is proposing "sounds very close to what the Bush Administration is doing," adding that there was "not a real strong difference" between Kahl's plan and the White House's plan."


'Unconditional disengagement' sounds an awful lot like "unconditional surrender", doesn't it?

I wonder which way Obama will go? If he goes with the CNAS position, he will disappoint a lot of folks; but the CAP group is little better than a "liberal" PNAC-type organization, so that isn't too reassuring, either...

[Dhalgren]

1. I am afraid he will go with the CNAS - I hope not...