Senator Barack Obama is currently on a tour to visit Iraq, Jordan, Afghanistan, Israel, the Palestinian territories and at least three countries in Europe to “search for solutions” with political leaders. Obama and his opponent, Senator John McCain, have taken two very different approaches concerning the war in Iraq.
Throughout the campaign, Obama has pushed for a phased troop withdrawal ending with all brigades out of Iraq by the summer of 2010. McCain, however, has said he “strongly disagrees with those who advocate withdrawing American troops” before the Iraqi government has shown it can safeguard itself and its people. He has advocated a “surge” strategy to expedite that process.
While the two presidential candidates might seem very different to Democrats and Republicans, some Iraqis and Iraqi Americans in Jordan see both men providing the same result.
“If Obama’s president, then America’s out (of Iraq) and if McCain’s president, then America’s staying…no, it doesn’t work like that,” said Dr. Ayad Jihayel, a 50 year-old Iraqi American from the city of Samawah. “The idea of 'pulling out' is in numbers only. Bases will remain, as will American interest in oil and development.”
Jihayel said the only difference he sees between the two is that McCain has more foreign policy experience, while Obama has more showmanship in “trying to be a good ambassador.” He says the presidential debates on Iraq are pointless.
“American policy is always the same: all bull****,” he said. “Policies aren’t made by the president; they are made by the big men. When I say big men, I mean oil companies and arms manufacturers.”
Others said neither man would make a huge difference in their country, because America's greatest impact on Iraq had come under the current administration.
“I do not know much about them, but both men are our friends,” Muhammed Sadeik Ismael, a 42 year-old former Iraqi from Irbil, said. “I am a Kurd, and my people were massacred by Saddam Hussein before the Americans came. We will always call him a terrorist.”
In March 1988, Hussein ordered chemical attacks on the Kurdish village of Halabja that killed an estimated 5,000 citizens. McCain visited Iraq at the anniversary of the massacre earlier this year.
Ismael lives in the north and Jihayel grew up as a Shiite in the south, but both lamented over the “catastrophe” that followed the fall of Hussein’s regime.
“Today, our country is glad to be rid of the dictator, but we didn’t wish for such troubles,” Jihayel said. “We didn’t take advantage of U.S. support. Instead we fought over religion and power.”
However, Ismael said he now feels easiness at home despite the on-going war. He explained that his children are no longer scared to go to sleep at night because their neighborhood feels safer.
“Today is better the one year ago, and one year ago was better than two years ago,” he said. “The north and the south are almost back to normal. Baghdad is no good now, but it will be happier and better in time in’sha Allah (God willing).”
Ismael’s nephew serves as a soldier in the Iraqi army, and he said he gets frequent updates of how Americans are handing over territories to Iraqi troops. Last week, American troops handed over control of the southern province of Qadisiyah to Iraqi security force. It was the 10th of the nation’s 18 provinces to be placed under Iraqi government control, most of them in northern Kurdish and southern Shiite regions.
Twenty-two people were killed and almost 100 were injured in bombings that occurred the same day Qadisiyah was handed over to Iraqi security forces. After Obama’s visit to Iraq and Afghanistan, he said American soldiers have a long way to go before there can be peace.
“Looking at the landscape and the extraordinary poverty involved makes you realize what a daunting task our efforts there are going to be,” he said to a Time magazine journalist. “And it redoubles my belief, or deepens my belief, that if we're going to get that done we're going to have put in more resources. Both issues [Iraq and Afghanistan] are very difficult.”