Sunday, July 20, 2008

An al-Maliki endorsement of Obama's candidacy?

This week, Nuri al-Maliki, the prime minister of Iraq, said he wanted US troops to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible. He said that "US presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes." That's the sound of the US occupation of Iraq wearing out its welcome.

It makes you wonder what al-Maliki's position might be on Senator John McCain's candidacy. He was much less candid about that, saying that he did not want to recommend who American's should vote for. He did say of the two candidates, however, that "whoever is thinking about the shorter term is closer to reality. Artificially extending the stay of US troops would cause problems.

Should we consider that an endorsement of Senator Barack Obama's candidacy by al-Maliki?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

With friends like al-Muliki....
No Arab leader in their right mind is going to publicly endorse having the U.S. military camp out in their country. But I'd bet a barrel of oil that, behind the scenes, he's not in such a hurry to see the U.S. security force leave anytime soon.

Anonymous said...

al-Maliki couldn't do any worse in picking a U.S. president than the U.S. electorate. Or the U.S. Supreme Court.