This post is the second in a series. Read the first part here.
President Obama’s “Address to the Nation on the End of Combat Operations in Iraq,” was consistent with his first public speech expressing his opposition to the war. He stood by the same principles, as he was fulfilling his responsibility as head of state, President for the entire nation and not only those who support him and his partisan position. To paraphrase one of his standard lines, he was not speaking as President of the Blue States or the Red States, but as President of the United States of America. The night of the address and in the days that followed, this most basic quality of his speech was overlooked. Instead, there were misleading interpretations, from Obama’s critics and his supporters, revealing a fundamental problem in our public life.
The Partisan Interpretations
From his partisan opposition, the criticism was strong. <<Obama should have declared victory,>> Senator John McCain and his interviewer Sean Hannity, agreed. (video) He should have given President Bush full credit for the victory. He should have apologized for his opposition to the surge. Lindsey Graham concurred and was particularly critical that Obama did not acknowledge the terrorists’ defeat and the need to extend our momentum in Afghanistan. (video) The emphasis on withdrawal instead of victory was the fundamental problem with the President’s speech. “It’s not about when we leave in Afghanistan. It’s about what we leave behind.” Charles Krauthammer, in the instant analysis following the speech on Fox News, observed that the speech was “both flat and odd.” Flat, because it did not celebrate the victory, but rather emphasized the withdrawal almost as a lamentation. Odd, because of the way he linked his topics, from Iraq to Afghanistan to, most disturbing for Krauthammer, tacking on an “economic pep talk.” There should have been a coherent speech about our missions abroad. Instead there was a speech by a man who is only interested in his domestic agenda. (video)
And from his partisan supporters there was also serious criticism, mirroring the rage on the right. <<Obama should have declared defeat,>> Frank Rich seemed to be saying in an interesting op-ed. piece yesterday. Rich’s complaint was the exact opposite of Obama’s critics from the right. “What was so grievously missing from Obama’s address was any feeling for what has happened to our country during the seven-and-a-half-year war whose ‘end’ he was marking…‘Our unity at home was tested,’ he said, as if all those bygones were now bygones and all the toxins unleashed by this fiasco had miraculously evaporated once we drew down to 50,000 theoretically non-combat troops … Obama asked the country to turn the page on Iraq as if that were as easy as, say, voting for him in 2008. “ For Rich and many other critics of the war in Iraq, including me, there is a desire to properly learn from the disaster that the war in Iraq has been. And he is quite critical of the speech because Obama did not directly confront this issue.
Deliberate Considerations
Yet, the critics from the left and the right overlook what the President was trying to do, indeed what he had to do. He understood that this was a serious moment, requiring a serious and non-partisan address from the Oval Office, by the President, as the head of state.
A war, which required huge commitment and sacrifice, was drawing to an end. The outcome of the conflict would be more determined by politics than by military action, and the primary responsibility for the outcome was passing from American to Iraqi hands, for better and for worse. There has been no clear victory, but also there has been no clear defeat. There are, rather, a series of serious political challenges in Iraq and in the United States. President Obama was marking this situation, its gravity, while working from his judgment about the Iraq War, which dates back to his first anti-War speech. He sought to speak to the whole nation, and to find a common ground. To recognize that the end of the combat mission left our country with profound challenges, the war in Afghanistan, a weakened economy and society.
When he spoke up against the impending “dumb war,” he reminded his anti-war audience that he was not against all wars, referring to the war in Afghanistan, and when he spoke up against the war he warned that it would weaken the American economy and society and would frustrate the pursuit of the American dream. As the American combat mission ended, the President returned to these themes. He sought to return all Americans, both war hawks and anti-war doves, to his early point – the need to face the challenges of the day, turning away from the divisions of yesterday.
Obviously, there was resistance to this message, resistance supported by the media and political environments. There is a pressing need to work against these tendencies. Obama tried. In my next post, I will analyze his words against cynicism.
Leave a Reply