The testing of the unknown quantity begins:
Telegraph
A senior Western diplomat in Baghdad said that Mr Maliki told close aides he
would hold the new president to an obligation to oversee a rapid withdrawal
of US troops, a key Iraqi government demand in recent talks.
"Maliki has said he took the Iraq issue 'off the table' for Obama by endorsing his timetable during his visit to Baghdad in July," the diplomat told The Daily Telegraph.
"Maliki firmly hoped for an Obama victory and has used expectations of such to drive a very hard bargain with the US over its presence in Iraq.
"The prime minister has extracted an unbelievable number of concessions from the Bush administration and thinks Obama will be even more generous in implementing the deal."
Violence in Iraq has been ramping up over the last few weeks. The Russians are being more... well, Russian. President Elect Obama's stated willingness to "talk" will be perceived as weakness by strongmen all over the world. Let's hope he lets go of his naive let's-all-just-get-along foreign policy ideas before reality mug's him. And us. Jimmy Carter, who's failed foreign policy was very similar to Obama's, never did let go of his rose colored glasses.
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