This point cannot be emphasized enough: Obama, in opposing the surge, was wrong on the most important politico-military decision since the war began. He not only opposed the surge, he predicted in advance that it could not succeed and that it would not lead to a decrease in violence (on January 10, 2007, the night President Bush announced the surge, Obama declared he saw nothing in the plan that would “make a significant dent in the sectarian violence that’s taking place there.” A week later, he repeated the point emphatically: the surge strategy would “not prove to be one that changes the dynamics significantly.”)

Both predictions were demonstrably wrong. And for Obama to state that Iraq’s leaders “have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge” is misleading and false. Iraqi leaders have reached comprehensive political accommodations, including passing key laws having to do with provincial elections, the distribution of resources, amnesty, pensions, investment, and de-Ba’athification. In fact, a report card issued in May judged that Iraq’s efforts on 15 of 18 benchmarks are “satisfactory”–almost twice of what it determined to be the case a year ago. Is Obama unaware of these achievements? Does he care at all about them?