The New York Post is reporting that while campaigning for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, in actuality, Sen. Obama was negotiating with Iraqi leaders to delay the time frame for the withdrawal for his political advantage. According to the Post:

According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July . . . Obama has made many contradictory statements with regard to Iraq. His latest position is that US combat troops should be out by 2010. Yet his effort to delay an agreement would make that withdrawal deadline impossible to meet.

and

Obama has given Iraqis the impression that he doesn’t want Iraq to appear anything like a success, let alone a victory, for America. The reason? He fears that the perception of US victory there might revive the Bush Doctrine of “pre-emptive” war – that is, removing a threat before it strikes at America.

Despite some usual equivocations on the subject, Obama rejects pre-emption as a legitimate form of self -defense. To be credible, his foreign-policy philosophy requires Iraq to be seen as a failure, a disaster, a quagmire, a pig with lipstick or any of the other apocalyptic adjectives used by the American defeat industry in the past five years.

The article also rightly notes that Obama’s attempt to stall withdrawal discussions will likely also mean that any meaningful troop reduction could not realistically take place for several years. The Post notes that if Obama wins he could not have an ambassador to Iraq until February at the absolute earliest. By then, the Iraq election season would begin, thus a new government might be formed, taking longer still until a negotiating team could be named to deal with the new Obama government, which would take us to next June. Then, considering the negotiations would be starting all over again, we’re looking at another 6 months before a draft accord would be in place and submitted to the Iraqi Parliament, which then might take another 6 months to actually pass into law. As Taheri points out: “Thus, the 2010 deadline fixed by Obama is a meaningless concept, thrown in as a sop to his anti-war base.”

Gee, why am I not surprised that Obama would do something like this? Does it remind anyone of the NAFTA flap a few months ago? Tell the public one thing while in actuality doing something else. Isn’t the important thing bringing our troops home in a reasonable fashion and having a secure Iraq? Of course not, for the Democrats the point is scoring political points, even if it means using our troops as a political tool. The left loves to accuse the Bush administration of being a very closed, unethical administration. Yet are these signs that an Obama administration would be any better? He’s not even elected and he’s already making shady deals with Columbian rebels, Canadian diplomats and Iraqi political leaders. I’m sure glad change is coming to DC.