Barack Obama: Democrats are responsible for things turning around in Iraq

ST reader NC Cop mentioned this in the comments this weekend, and I’ve just now seen the transcript where Obama made this unbelievably stupid assertion at last night’s Dem debate in New Hampshire (emphasis added):

Now, I had no doubt — and I said at the time, when I opposed the surge, that given how wonderfully our troops perform, if we place 30,000 more troops in there, then we would see an improvement in the security situation and we would see a reduction in the violence. But understand, we started in 2006 with intolerable levels of violence and a dysfunctional government. We saw a spike in the violence, the surge reduced that violence, and we now are, two years later, back where we started two years ago. We have gone full circle at enormous cost to the American people.

What we have to do is to begin a phased redeployment to send a clear signal to the Iraqi government that we are not going to be there in perpetuity. Now, it will — we should be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in. I welcome the genuine reductions of violence that have taken place, although I would point out that much of that violence has been reduced because there was an agreement with tribes in Anbar province — Sunni tribes — who started to see, after the Democrats were elected in 2006, you know what, the Americans may be leaving soon, and we are going to be left very vulnerable to the Shi’as. We should start negotiating now. That’s how you change behavior.

McQ at QandO wrote in response:

That, of course, is abject nonsense, as the awakening had begun well before that was clear (review Michael Yon’s writings for proof). The reason the Sunnis chose the Americans and the strategy of alliance is because we had shown we wouldn’t quit and we were the better choice between al Qaeda and ourselves. Plus, the Sunnis had decided they’d made a mistake by refusing to participate in the electoral process and the politics of Iraq and knew that the Americans were the only ones who could guarantee their reentry.

Bingo.

For Barack Obama to claim that the Defeatocrats – of which he is one – are responsible for “much of” the success taking place in Iraq because of their threats to cut and run is absurd on its face. Can you imagine the Sunnis listening to the surrender platform coming from the Democratic party, then comparing it to the President’s unwavering commitment to seeing the mission completed in Iraq (a battle he is winning on multiple fronts, as we all know – so much so that Dems have had to “refocus” their Iraq message), and them deciding that they better do something or the Democrats will yank US troops out of Iraq? Sure, some Iraqis were worried about what Democrats would do after the 2006 election, but that’s a far cry from all of a sudden changing your tune over an empty threat. The bottom line is that the most major changes in the landscape in Iraq began after what? You guessed it: the surge, which was opposed by anti-war Democrats like Obama.

Before the surge started producing fruitful results, he was calling for a “redployment” and an eventual pull out of all combat troops by March of 2008, and blaming the failures of the war on Bush. Now that we’re seeing success in Iraq, he’s trying to spin them as victories for Democrats. Funny how it’s “Bush’s war” when things aren’t going swimmingly, but the Democrat’s war when they’re improving. Unfreakingreal. If it were up to Barack Obama, there would have been no surge, and as a result there would have been no turnaround for the better in Iraq, and Islamofascists would be preparing for full blown genocide to start in March of this year after our combat troops had withdrawn.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if cognitive dissonance were a disease, we could officially declare an epidemic in the Democratic party.