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July 6, 2011
Begging To Occupy

On a recent secret visit to Iraq President Barack Obama exchanged offerings with Iraq's Prime Minister al-Maliki. This according to knowledgeable circles.

As we are told Obama fell to his knees begging al-Maliki take up his offer to keep 10,000 U.S. occupation troops in Iraq past this year's end. Al-Maliki stayed seated but offered Obama a date.

While some Obama officials immediately explained that the date offered was the one on which al-Maliki would positively decide the question, other officials questioned that interpretation.

Posted by b on July 6, 2011 at 18:02 UTC | Permalink
Comments

I bet he offered a date-wine summit.

Posted by: joseph | Jul 6 2011 21:29 utc | 1

At this stage even if all occupation troops withdraw by Dec 31 Obama should not be given any credit for it, since he has spent the last year bribing, threatening, cojoling, and otherwise rationally trying to convince Al-Maliki to get them to stay longer.
If all troops leave Iraq by the end of the year it will be despite Obama’s best efforts not because of them. Of course lets also remember that 31st December 2011 was the date for withdrawal Obama promised when he became President (during the campaign trial it was 16 months).
Anyway don’t see the point Obama holding a meeting with Maliki. He is on record as saying he would be in favour of the troops remaining but he doesn’t stand a chance of getting it through Parliament. Not even half his allies would vote for it.

Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Jul 7 2011 0:10 utc | 2

Yeah, the problem is that even if Maliki wanted to say yes to Obama, it’s not at all sure that he could get it through the parliament. After they’ve spent a year trying to get a government together, not all that successfully, I don’t see how they could get a majority to beg the Americans to stay, when there’s major opposition.

Posted by: alexno | Jul 7 2011 10:10 utc | 3

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