Obama's Early October Suprise

The term "October Surprise" refers to a bogus claim that then Vice President candidate George H W Bush went to Iran to request that they hold our hostages until after the election. There was no evidence that Bush had ever left the country much less visited Iran but Democrats still pushed this conspiracy theory.

We now have evidence that Barack Obama has attempted to undermine our efforts to negotiate a withdrawal of our troops from Iraq. We know that Obama met with Iraqi leaders in July. One of the men he met with, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari disclosed some details of that meeting in an interview with Amir Taheri of the New York Post. According to Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July. Zebari said "He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington." Obama's advice was that, rather than reach an accord with the "weakened Bush administration," Iraq should seek an extension of the UN mandate. While in Iraq, Obama also tried to persuade the US commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, to suggest a "realistic withdrawal date." They declined.

At present we are on track to remove all American combat troops by 2011 or 2012. There is no way to responsibly accelerate that date. Delaying an agreement for political reasons like allowing President Obama to claim the credit is toying with our troops and is certainly not putting the country first.