The Associated Press says that patriotic Pennsylvania want the next President to get the U.S. out of Iraq, but responsibly:
To get out of Iraq safely and responsibly, we're going to need help from other countries. Because he did not help enable the war to start, and in fact spoke out against it even starting, Obama is the most likely to command international goodwill and recruit that help.
Defense Secretary Gates himself has recently said that our own NATO allies are hesitating to assist us in our military operations in Afghanistan because of their anger over Iraq.
Think what you will of other countries. Go ahead and be resentful of the idea of THEM helping US. I am. The reality is, the rest of the world is angry at the U.S. for its choice to invade Iraq. The war has, as Americans and others warned, disrupted international business and security.
World leaders (and millions of civilians) know very well where our current candidates stood in 2002 and 2003 on the question of whether to authorize George W. Bush to start this war.
(Yeah, yeah, yeah, Obama was not in the Senate at the time. But two facts: 1. Clinton was. She voted yes. 2. Obama spoke out publicly against such authorization. Any attempt to cast doubts on Obama's pre-war position rely on mere imagination, as opposed to Clinton's vote and Obama's speeches, which are matters of fact.)
In order to help Iraq stabilize, we are going to need help from our international friends AND foes. We will need Iraq's neighbors and other nations, of the East and West, to make diplomatic, political and military contributions.
World governments will be less willing to help a president who voted to authorize the most globe-upsetting blunder the U.S. has ever made.
The international community will be more willing to work with the U.S. in the way we clearly need, our national pride notwithstanding, if the American people elect a President who not only denounces the entire history of Bush's Iraq policy, but can do so credibly.
Iraq will only stabilize quickly with more help from the greater international community, and only then will our military's efforts there to date NOT be in vain. I hope patriotic "War-Weary PA voters," as the AP dubs them, consider that.