Barack Obama, Iraqi leader Nouri Maliki appear to be on the same page

John McCain's campaign could not have seen this coming -- the presumptive Republican presidential nominee forced on the defensive by, of all people, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

Much as McCain and his staff wanted to hammer home their view that Barack Obama is clueless about Iraq, Maliki seemingly gave the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee a big dose of credibility when word surfaced over the weekend that, as quoted by the German magazine Der Spiegel, he said he would like to see U.S. troops leave his country "as soon as possible."

Maliki, Der Spiegel reported, went on to say: "U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”

Maliki's office, suddenly finding him thrust smack in the middle of the U.S. campaign, issued a somewhat half-hearted demurral, insisting something got lost in the translation of what he said.

But an audio recording of his comment, vetted by the New York Times, showed that Der Spiegel essentially got it right. And in the initial readout from Obama's visit today with Maliki in Baghdad, the Associated Press reported that the Iraqi government would like to see American combat units gone at some point in 2010 -- a timeframe, the story noted, that "falls within the 16-month withdrawal plan proposed by Obama." [UPDATE: The L.A. Times has the story, as well.]

McCain, during a round-robin set of appearances this morning on the major morning talk shows, did his best to try to change the subject by focusing on how wrong, in his view, Obama was for opposing the U.S. troop surge in Iraq last year, which has been widely credited with restoring a semblance of security there.

On ABC's "Good Morning America," for instance, McCain chided Obama for a "fundamental misjudgment" on the surge. And on NBC’s “Today” show, he said his rival "badly misjudged" what was needed in Iraq.

McCain, though, did not escape unscathed during his interview sessions. In a verbal flub that will spark renewed recollections of his Shiite/Sunni miscue earlier this year while he was visiting the Middle East, he erroneously reconfigured the map of the world.

Asked on ABC about the uptick in violence by Islamic extremists in Afghanistan, he replied: "We have a lot of work to do and I'm afraid it's a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border."

Iraq borders several nations, but Pakistan is not among them -- looming between the two is Iran. (Pakistan's neighbors, however, include Afghanistan).

The Note, ABC's daily political summary, opined that by "appearing to confuse Iraq and Afghanistan" McCain ended up committing "the first big gaffe" since Obama embarked on his overseas trip amid much speculation about mistakes he might make.

-- Don Frederick

Photo credit: AFP / Getty Images

Comments

[Chris]

The author Don Frederick is such an obvious McCain hater. He takes an simple mistake and tries to make us think McCain doesn't know where Iraq is in the world. For god's sake Frederick show some sense. Have you never misspoken? Your thinly veiled pro liberal rant is shameless.

[Nick]

Wonderful. I wonder how the republicans will play this...

[New Frontiersman]

For someone touting Foreign Policy as his "major" strength, McCain sure misspeaks a lot.

[Scott]

Don Frederick is an idiot and biased in his writing. People complain about talk radio but obviously no one reads the garbage that people like Frederick write.

Considering it’s the Los Angeles times a news organization I rate right there with New York Times and ex-Soviet Union Pravda I am not surprised. Propaganda for the radical left wing elitist and their mindless drones, not one liberal should ever even open their mouths about FoxNews or any other news organization while they endorse garbage like this.

Obama is an idiot and bought and paid for puppet like so many other politicians out of Chicago. Not only does he come from the most crooked and criminal city for politics in US history Chicago but he has no idea what he is doing and he is worse than Kerry on flip flopping. But let’s not let honesty get in the way of good leftwing propaganda aye? Man of the people, that is funny he is paid for he is a man of special interest groups no one raises money like he does honestly.

Scott
Anchorage Alaska

[Leon Rogson]

The difference between "would like to be out" and "will be out" is the difference between those who wish for defeat and those who want victory.
We would have liked to finish WWII before it started! We couldn't. We would like to be out of IRAQ or never to have gone in, in the first place!

On position accepts facts on the ground (the Iraqui government, the current administration, McCain) the other position is ideologically driven and wishes us to fail.

I would think someone as experienced as Don Frederick, would be able to see the difference between the too. He, unfortunately, has his "I am for OBAMA" blinders on!
Leon

[James Green-Armytage]

Well, in my view, Obama was right to oppose the original launching of this war under President Bush. Now, his plan for withdrawal, in addition to being a popular idea among American citizens, is looking more and more feasible and responsible every day. In contrast, McCain voted to authorize the war, and seems like he has to be dragged kicking and screaming toward any kind of disengagement in Iraq. I honestly don't know how much the 'surge' can be credited for improving the conditions in Iraq (couldn't this be something that is accepted as true by virtue of endless repetition?), but in general it seems hard to argue that McCain has shown consistently better jugement than Obama on foreign policy.

[Franklin]

Chris-

It's not just one simple mistake. McCain does this constantly. The existence of Czechoslovakia, the difference between Shi'a and Sunni (made the mistake on 4 different occasions), who the leader of Iran is, the link between Iran and Al Qaeda, etc.

I know every word of the candidates is being analyzed, but foreign policy is supposedly McCain's forte, and he keeps showing us how little he knows.

-Franklin

[James]

The more the media tries to make me vote for Obama the more my vote will go to McCain.

[Elaine Gregory]

Well Chris, I do hope the next time Barack Obama makes a gaffe you will be gracious enough to consider that a "misspoken" and not a reason to launch into the usual vitriolic rant so common in "conservatives".

[James McDouglas]

Someone in the media grow the stones to ask McCain what "winning" in Iraq means... and whether it has anything to do with anything but troop violence...

ie whether it matters that Republicans essentially have turned the country over to Iran in order to achieve that reduction in violence.

Winning? Nixon said we won Vietnam too. Nixon... the guy McCain said he idolized in 1973 US News & World Report.

[Archie haase]

McCain promising more war at least that is what the Iraqis hear coming out of Wasghington republicans. It is a no brainer they support a reasoned draw down of US troops. Where is the news?

[Fernando F.]

I remind everybody, that the surge had 24 objectives. One of them was the reduction of violence. McCain repeats again and again that the surge has been successful because of the reduction of violence. What happened to the other 23 objectives? some were political. The Sunnies and Shiites just got together in their Parlament a few days ago.

[Jay Rendahl]

Here's a not so thinly veiled comment:
McCain has been about a C-average politician. He's not good or bad, but not presidential material. The conservatives said that over and over until the political-middle made him a candidate. Obama, on the oher hand, has proven he has, if nothing else, political tact and awareness, not to mention the ability to use his resources wisely. These idiotic rib-punches from the far right are..well....idiotic

[Gerald Shields]

That's not what Frederick's saying Chris. What Frederick seems to be saying is that McCain plan to stay in Iraq for an indefinite period isn't being supported by the Iraqi Government. Cut and Dried.

[Toon Moene]

Actually, I'm far more interested in what Gen. Petraeus is going to tell the opponent of his "surge" plan.

My opinion as an arm-chair military strategist is quite simple. The original size of the US-led coalition troops was sufficient for winning the military war.

Unfortunately, it wasn't sufficient for a prolonged occupation of the country - hence the need for a "surge". Of course, much more than just troop numbers contributed to the success of this surge (hint - you can also *buy* peace).

[JLE]

Did you catch McCain's comment on a morning talk show about the "Pakistan-Iraq border?" Check out a map of the Middle East and you'll see that Iran lies between Pakistan and Iraq. Pakistan and Iraq don't even come close to sharing a border. McCain has been to Iraq several times and doesn't know this? So who's clueless about Iraq?

[Kathleen]

I love it. The more the republicans try to goat Obama into making a mistake, the more it backfires on them. Who is it again who knows nothing of foreign policy? I wonder.

[Peter]

Hi Andrew!

McCain's "one hundred year war" is something that the people of Iraq are obviously not too happy about.
How can they be? Sure we're helping to restructure the things that were blown up but it's still their country and their oil.Iraq has had plenty of time to rebuild. We need to get our soldiers out of there and start attending to rebuilding America instead. We've got levee's breaking and bridges collapsing over here. I mean come on McCain!

Let's re-deploy some soldiers to Afghanistan and send the rest home.

[Cassandra]

McCain's gaffe was honest: surely he meant Afghanistan, not Iraq, and its border to Pakistan. It's a shame, since in many respects he deserves to be President. But the mistake makes him look even more like the current President, who once confused Sweden with Switzerland ("they’re the ones without a navy, right?") to a room full of incredulous staffers who remained silent in the face of unbelievable stupidity. McCain's error highlights the tendency of some of our countrymen to lump all Muslim nations into one big "Islamistan". Such ignorance serves our terrorist enemies by making our target wider than it needs to be. Prosecuting a single war with single-minded determination against the actual perpetrators of the 9/11 massacre would have defeated Bin Laden's methodology, which the pseudo-conservatives so ardently caved into: “Divide and conquer.” This is not a pro liberal rant. Only the GOP's feigning of capitalism has brought them to failure. Now we seem destined to have a President who will remove us further from capitalism. The pseudo-conservative bait-and-switch has backfired again, and they bear the responsibility for bringing us Obama. Either candidate will increase Federal spending just as the GOP Socialist Bush has. At least the money Obama takes from us will be spent here, rather than doled out to Iraqi politicians to be later spent by militias fighting our own soldiers.

[west]

As an independent, I find it interesting that Chris sees a McCain hater because the author brings up another "misstatement" by McCain about the middle east. Everyone mispeaks, but most of us do not do it as frequently as McCain has been taped doing it and as consistently about a region that is such a large part of his camapaign. And most importantly, if he said it, he said it. When appologists try to disparage the messenger...
that is the weakest form of argument. Changing the subject does not change the facts.
Please support your candidate by telling us why you support him and why other Americans should.

[craig austin]

i don't give a damn if other country leaders approve of our president, he's not working for them!! MCCAIN ALL THE WAY

[BTH]

I was very interested in the article on Obama/Maliki. Unfortunately, I have pretty much forgotten about it and am instead writing about the McCain article. McCain misspoke: plain and simple. There are few people who can accurately tell which states border each other, let alone which nations. And to do it extemporaneously and infallibly? I am so busy judging the writer's criteria of failure that I have forgotten the point of his story.

[Che]

"The author Don Frederick is such an obvious McCain hater...Your thinly veiled pro liberal rant is shameless."

Hmm, Chris - your response seems more like a rant. Are you so angry at someone calmly pointing out flaws in your chosen candidate that you shoot the messenger?

[John]

Gosh, Right wing Republicans are so lame, they have no knowledge whatsoever on whats happening outside the US.
Obama would not have got into Irak in the first place.
He will be our next, well deserved president.
No more Republican in charge in our great country.

[Jerry]

Ok so Obama gets more coverage thanks to the US tax payers, there was no reason for him to go to Iraq, except for a photo op. What they dont want to say is of course Iraq wants us out of the picture. We are invaders in their country but if we want to stay longer Nouri Maliki will not object since we put him in office in the first place, Just like the President of Afghanistan they will say what our officials want them to say and do what we want them to do. These two men are no different than the ones we put in office right after WW2 or Korea or during Vietnam.