One of the highlights Crocker/Petreus hearings, via washingtonmonthly.com
Obama was able to hit Petraeus and Crocker very hard….He got Petraeus to agree with him that the total elimination of Al Qaeda is an impossible standard for withdrawal. Next he goes after Crocker’s points about Iranian influence, pointing out that both Iran and Al Qaeda are in Iraq because we invaded and that we can not expect to eliminate Iranian involvement.
Then came the hammer. Obama pointed out that if the definition of success is put so high – no Al Qaeda, no Iranian influence, a prosperous diverse democracy we will be there forever. He then points out that we still, after 8 hours of testimony, have no definition of success….Crocker’s weak response its “hard and complicated.”
Obama seems willing to challenge people like Crocker and Petreus and call them on their BS. This is a nice change from some of the other presidential candidates who either don’t understand the situation well enough to question the judgement of Crocker and Petreus(mostly, I think this applies to McCain who does not seem to know the difference between Shiites and Sunnis) or are too frightened that they will seem weak if they don’t go along with neo-con idiocy. It is time to end the Iraq war and Obama seems to understand this better than anyone else running for president.