That’s the question of this USA Today editorial. The answer is very easy: he would be crucified by the antiwar wing of his party and Nancy Pelois and Reid would have a cow. They’ve been saying all along that the war is lost and we have to get our troops out of Iraq and nothing we do will stop the civil war between the Sunnis and Shia. But here, when faced with the obvious, he has to now do a dance to avoid dissing the troops but attributing the reduction to some other source. It’s all so obvious and amusing.
And I bet he doesn’t want to admit that he got it wrong, it would underline his lack of experience, wisdom and judgment. The result is that he’s being just as stubborn as he claims Bush of being. Didn’t the left harp on Bush to admit he made a mistake? The closest Obama has come to admitting his mistake was scrubbing his website of his objection to the surge and his prediction that it would fail and actually increase the violence. Obviously he wasn’t as knowledgeable about the situation as he thought he was.