Obama faces moment of truth with Iraq election
While the United States has faced many critical junctures during the seven-year-old Iraq war,
Spirulina Tabletarguably the stakes have never been higher than they are now.
If the election goes well, U.S.
Omega 3 Softgelssoldiers can go home on schedule. But, if it triggers a repeat of the sectarian bloodletting that killed tens of thousands of Iraqis in 2006-2007, Obama may be forced to rethink his timetable.
An eruption of violence that threatens Iraq's stability would also be an unwelcome distraction for Obama, who has declared that bringing down the United States' stubbornly high unemployment rate will be his top priority this year.
He left himself little wiggle room in his State of the Union address to the American people in January.
"We will have all of our combat troops out of Iraq by the end of this August," he said. "Make no mistake: this war is ending, and all of our troops are coming home."
Obama campaigned on a promise to bring a swift end to a war that has claimed the lives of more than 4,300 U.S. soldiers and drained the U.S. Treasury of hundreds of billions of dollars.
With an economy only starting to recover from recession and a deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan,
Spirulina Tabletthe Iraq war has not been a top priority for Obama, although he has appointed his vice president, Joe Biden, to manage it.
OBAMA'S DILEMMA
Now, however, Obama has arrived at his moment of truth.
The dilemma he faces is what happens if Iraq's political leaders remain deadlocked for months on who should form. a new government and spoilers try to take advantage of any power vacuum, as al Qaeda did after the 2005 election, sparking a wave of sectarian bloodletting.
"The concern is that that period is potentially perilous,"
Omega 3 Softgels said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "If there is any sense of a vacuum, who is in charge, one is always worried about how that vacuum is filled.
But, the administration is heartened by the fact that "as messy as things are, Iraqis, at least for now, have made a fundamental choice to resolve their differences through the political process, not bombs and bullets," he said.
The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen.
Spirulina Tablet Ray Odierno, says he has made contingency plans to slow the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates stressed there would have to be a "considerable deterioration" of the security situation first.
