Interesting look at what could be when we withdraw and what choices a new president faces.
this is one person's look:
Barack Obama and my son Nathaniel, who graduates college next week, have taught me (through speeches and essays, respectively) to recognize that if and when the election of 2008 produces a president who withdraws Americans from Iraq, it will be vital that Americans not repeat the finger-pointing, hate-mongering, and blame-assigning politics of the post-Vietnam period.
The withdrawal will be, if it ever happens, extraordinarily dangerous for people in Iraq and for stock markets and economic conditions around the world. It will be filled with scenes of horror and many in the mainstream media will immediately try to drag down any American president who is in office during this very difficult transition.
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Some Presidents may buckle, and decide to bomb, or re-occupy. Some may so fear the reaction that they decline to withdraw. Some, like the President today, may believe that peace and security lie just around time's corner and so we should march on.
But if the United States brings its occupation to an end, we will need, to borrow a phrase, a uniter and not a divider in the White House. We will need someone who can live the ethic of having malice toward none, and charity toward all. This is a high role because when politics slides over to true cultural leadership, many of the normal tactics of politics have to be left in the drawer.
This transition to high leadership is, I think, what Senator Obama is talking about. I don't think he is by any means the only person who can aim in this direction, but he is a distinctive voice on the topic.
http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/may/23/let_me_say_this_about_the_other