Obama Flip-Flops On Progress In Iraq

First Obama said that, if he had it all to do over again, he would have voted against The Surge. You might think Obama said this because he doesn't think The Surge has led to progress in Iraq.

But wait . . . now that he is serving his tour of duty in Iraq he suddenly has glowing things to say about the success there:

. . . Mr. Obama said he was “pleased with the progress taking place” in Iraq and said that it was his impression that among Iraqis there was “more optimism about what is happening.”

“You see the activity taking place, the people in the shops, the traffic on the streets, clearly there’s been an enormous improvement,” he said.

Mind you, Obama was caught in a terrible bind here. His number one position throughout the primaries was that Iraq was an irredeemable and hopeless mess, and that he had the insight to see this disaster before it unfolded. Obama opposed the war from the beginning, didn't you know?

But the success of The Surge in Iraq is obvious and undeniable. He risks being ridiculed as the candidate who has eyes but will not see if he denies what everyone else knows: that the situation in Iraq has improved tremendously.

So he has now engaged in the Mother of all Flip Flops: he now agrees with the Bush administration, the neocons, General Betrayus and (ack!) Joe Lieberman that the U.S. has achieved a remarkable victory in Iraq. He has abandoned his adolescent worldview that nothing good can ever come from the Bush presidency.

Will the hardcore left ever forgive him?

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