The editors of National Review lay out their view of Obama's Iraq policy today and it's a line of argument that has gained fairly wide support among conservatives.
Yes, reducing force levels is OK, on the path that Odierno has charted out. The first wait-and-see evaluation should be after the Iraqi presidential election, though there probably ought to be at least a few-month waiting period to see how that's going to turn out. Tom Ricks reports that Obama's going to fudge the "combat troops" issue by turning two BCTs into training brigades - we'll see what that looks like, as well as the overall posture.
2011 is still the more worrisome prospect. If you can't say exactly what Iraq will look like a year from now, how can we possibly be sure what it will look like in 30 months? Why say anything? This may be like Bush policy in the near term, but it's hard to imagine Bush making a big deal of the final withdrawal; rather, he would have waited and tried to negotiate a change to the SOFA.
Then there are just the two distinct personalities of the presidents: Bush was committed, heart and soul, to winning; Obama is committed to "ending." The rebuttable proposition ought to be that Obama is fundamentally not trustworthy on Iraq. How will Iraqis respond? They're happy that we're not drawing down too fast this year, but they're probably uncertain about what happens after that. The Iranians have expressed their displeasure thus far, but one subject at the meetings this coming spring will no doubt be how to play the longer-term game.
Obama's Iraq position has evolved a long way from his vote to cut off funding for the troops, and conservatives can praise that evolution -- but that doesn't mean conservatives can't highlight the uncertainty over the future. And we have to make clear that our strategy is not driven by 1] the clock, 2] the question of being there or NOT being there per se, but 3] the need to maintain and continue to build a partnership with Iraq. Conservatives can be agnostic about troop numbers (though it is worth noting that Obama looks a little like Bush I: Mission Accomplished, train-and-withdraw) but insistent about the long-term importance of our alliance with the Iraqis.
