Oldstyle, post: 21462612
For someone to claim Obama hasn't changed his narrative is laughable! He's changed it rather dramatically...
Not the narrative that you defined. This narrative has not changed;
“Obama has not changed his ‘narrative’ from 2011 through the present. It has been that he would have kept up to ten thousand troops in Iraq had the Iraqis made a request up to that amount and granted them immunity.”
Obama’s comments in the third debate in 2012 did not change the narrative becaue it was so easily fact checked to confirm that Romney was correct that Obama would have left troops in Iraq according to the actions of the President in 2011.
Obama did not say he would not leave troops in Iraq if Iraq had requested them and been able to extend the immunity.
Reading the entire exchange it appears Obama probably was trying to say that Romney was incorrect to be telling Iraqis that he somehow wouid be forcing the Iraqis to
keep foreign troops against their will a year
After the left.
Obama said In the debate to Romney. “You say that you're not interested in duplicating what happened in Iraq.
But just a few weeks ago, you said you think we should have more troops in Iraq right now. ”. “You said that we should still have troops in Iraq to this day.”
Romney: .....Number two, with regards to Iraq, you and I agreed I believe that there should be a status of forces agreement.
(CROSSTALK)
ROMNEY: Oh you didn't? You didn't want a status of...
OBAMA: What I would not have had done was left 10,000 troops in Iraq that would tie us down. And that certainly would not help us in the Middle East.
ROMNEY: I'm sorry, you actually -- there was a -- there was an effort on the part of the president to have a status of forces agreement, and I concurred in that, and said that we should have some number of troops that stayed on. That was something I concurred with... ...that your posture. That was my posture as well.
You thought it should have been 5,000 troops...
OBAMA: Governor?
ROMNEY: ... I thought there should have been more troops, but you know what? The answer was we got... ... no troops through whatsoever.
OBAMA:
This was just a few weeks ago that you indicated that we should still have troops in Iraq.
ROMNEY: ...I indicated that you failed to put in place a status... ..of forces agreement at the end of the conflict that existed.
OBAMA: ...here's one thing I've learned as commander in chief. You've got to be clear, both to our allies and our enemies, about where you stand and what you mean. You just gave a speech a few weeks ago in which you said we should still have troops in Iraq. That is not a recipe for making sure that we are taking advantage of the opportunities and meeting the challenges of the Middle East.
Now, it is absolutely true that we cannot just meet these challenges militarily. And so what I've done throughout my presidency and will continue to do is, number one, make sure that these countries are supporting our counterterrorism efforts.
Number two, make sure that they are standing by our interests in Israel's security, because it is a true friend and our greatest ally in the region.
Number three, we do have to make sure that we're protecting religious minorities and women because these countries can't develop unless all the population, not just half of it, is developing.
Number four, we do have to develop their economic -- their economic capabilities.
But number five, the other thing that we have to do is recognize that we can't continue to do nation building in these regions. Part of American leadership is making sure that we're doing nation building here at home. That will help us maintain the kind of American leadership that we need.