It Depends On What Your Definition Of "Precipitously" Is

There's more good news about the improving situation in Iraq today: AP reports that the Iraqi parliament will move out of the heavily fortified Green Zone and begin holding its sessions in the Iraqi parliament's former home, outside Baghdad's most heavily fortified sector.

"There is progress in the security situation and the reconstruction has been completed of the new building," [Deputy parliamentary speaker Khalid] al-Attiyah said, adding the new accommodations will be large enough for the full legislature and staff members.

The endless stream of news like this, along with McCain's nonstop haranguing of Obama's "talking to Ahmadinejad but not Petraeus," led Obama to say this, which I'm sure you all heard, as it was big news yesterday:

(CNN) – A day after his Republican counterpart sat down with visiting Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari, Barack Obama spoke with him by phone from Chicago Monday morning and told him that he looked forward to seeing him in Baghdad before November.

WATCH Sen. Obama discuss Iraq

“I emphasized to him how encouraged I was by the reductions in violence in Iraq, but also insisted that it is important for us to begin the process of withdrawing US troops, making clear that we have no interest in permanent bases in Iraq,” Obama told reporters ....

“I gave [Zebari] an assurance that should we be elected, an Obama administration will make sure that we continue with the progress that’s been made in Iraq, that we won’t act precipitously,” said Obama.

Now, I define giving our enemy the advantage of knowing the day we'll depart, and sticking to that departure date no matter what as acting precipitously. What else could he be referring to?

If I was the American anti-war left, I'd start being very, very careful around buses, because it looks like now that the general election's coming up, and America is smelling victory in Iraq, that the Ambitious Mr. O. is considering throwing them under the bus.

There's quite a lot of his Web site content he'll have to toss out, too:

• "Moreover, Iraq's political leaders have made no progress in resolving the political differences at the heart of their civil war." Let's track that against the progress of Obama's legislative record. Oh. What record?
  
  
• "In January 2007, he introduced legislation in the Senate to remove all of our combat troops from Iraq by March 2008." That would have assured the failure of the surge.
  
  
• "Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months." Precipitous.
  
  
• " ... if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda." Idiotic -- al Qaeda doesn't "build bases."
  

I don't understand Obama's fixation on not having permanent bases in Iraq. Iraq is not the hallowed Arabian Peninsula, which the radical jihadists want to keep pure of any foreign blood (in yet another example of Islam's wonderful tolerance). Many in Iraq would welcome our long-term stabilizing influence. And having an ongoing military presence in the Gulf would encourage regional stability, an important strategic goal.

Obama's Web site doesn't hint at why he wants no ongoing military presence there; I can only assume because it would support the wrong-headed Leftist claim that we are "occupying" Iraq. Just more soaring rhetoric replacing down to earth, practical policy.