Obama chooses his words very carefully in this exchange with a reporter at a gas station (?) press conference:
What I said is I would have a strike force in the region, perhaps in Iraq, perhaps outside of Iraq, so that we could take advantage of--or we could deal with potential problems that might take place in the region. That's very different from saying we're going to have a permanent occupation in Iraq...
Allah is shocked (shocked!) that Obama continues to distort McCain's position. I think that misses the point. Obama is saying he will maintain a troop presence in the country, a "strike force," and he refuses to say for how long. A strike force means combat troops. How many troops? He doesn't say. He does say that these troops will be used to "deal with potential problems."
Surely there will be plenty of potential problems to deal with if only a small contingent of U.S. forces remaining in Iraq, but what are these troops meant to do about it? If things go south, will this small contingent "strike" at insurgents in Ramadi? Baghdad? Basra? And to what end? This has Black Hawk Down written all over it--or are they going to drive into battle from their desert redoubt? If so we must be talking about a fairly large number of troops.
Obama has layed out a plan for an indefinite troop presence of undetermined size, and yet he mocks John McCain for saying he would keep U.S. forces in Iraq indefinitely and at undetermined levels. If nothing else we now know what the general election pivot will look like. And Allah does ask the right exit question: How does Obama define victory in this scenario? My guess: our guys not getting mauled in a fight with AQI when reinforcements are delayed by the trip from Kuwait.
Update: I deleted the video here, I think it was causing problems on the site. Click through the Hot Air link above to see the video that originally accompanied this post.
