No Iraqi Endorsement For Obama (Natch!)

"The Iraqis are really fearful about some of the positions the Democratic Party has adopted. If the Democrats win, they will be withdrawing their forces in a very rapid manner. Are we going to tell [Iraqis] that the game is over? That the Americans are pulling out?"
-- Sheik Ahmed Abu Rishah, Iraqi Awakening Movement

Who knows more about the possible effects of Obama's cut-and-run promises for Iraq: Dem campaign operatives or Iraqi leaders?

Barack Obama isn't available to answer this question because he "was unable" to meet with a group of visiting Iraqi leaders last week. According to Bret Stevens in WSJ, the leaders, who were able to meet with McCain, included Abu Rishah, Mamoun Sami Rashid al-Alawi, the governor of Anbar province, and Hussein Ali al-Shalan, a Shiite from Diwaniyah.

Says al-Alawi of that aborted Obama meeting and their visit to Walter Reed:

The governor tells a moving story about their visit to Walter Reed hospital, where they were surprised to find smiles on the faces of GIs who had lost limbs. "The smile is because they feel they have accomplished something for the American people."

But the Iraqis came away with a different impression in Chicago, where they had hoped to meet with Mr. Obama but ended up talking to a staff aide. "We noticed there was a concentration on the negatives," the governor recalls. "The Democrat kept saying that Americans have committed a lot of mistakes. Yes, that's true, but why don't you concentrate on what the Americans have achieved in Iraq?"

The visitors were even more flabbergasted -- Sunni and Shi'ia alike -- by Obama's willingness to negotiate with their bloodthirsty neighbors to the east, asking Stevens, "Do you Americans forget what the Iranians did to your embassy? Don't you know that Ahmadinejad was one of [the hostage takers]?"

Of course we remember. Of course we know. But it seems to have slipped Obama's mind, and in continuing his refusal to honestly assess Iraq, our visiting Iraqi friends weren't able to remind him.