This is the biggest development in the presidential race to date. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told a German magazine that he supported Barak Obama's plan to withdraw from Iraq in 16 months.
WOW. This is huge. McCain has been attacking Obama for not visiting Iraq and making his policies up based on political expediency instead of the facts on the ground. This argument just died. McCain can hardly accuse Maliki of not being close enough to Iraq. Also, when McCain was asked in 2004: "Should the US withdraw if the Iraqi government asked us to, even if the US wasn't happy about it?" McCain answered yes.
Either McCain has to endorse Maliki and Obama's position, or admit he cares nothing for Iraqi sovereignty.
A prominent Republican strategist who occasionally advises the McCain campaign said simply, "We're fucked." This has the potential to completely refocus how Iraq is perceived. Obama now has the upper hand on this issue without question. Given that McCain is running purely on his foreign policy credentials, this represents a major blow. There are two major foreign policy questions in this election: how to deal with terrorism, and how to deal with Iraq. With Maliki's statement, McCain may have just lost hold on the Iraq question.
Obama is going to come out this week hammering this point.
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