And The War Has Changed In Iraq

As U.S. President Barack Obama unburdened himself of America’s nation-building obligations in Iraq, he pledged in his second Oval Office speech to devote himself to the “most urgent task” of reconstruction at home.

“It must be our central mission as a people, and my central responsibility as President,” Mr. Obama said of restoring the battered U.S. economy, in a prime-time address Tuesday to mark the official end of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq.

The speech was a calculated political risk designed to prove to supporters and opponents alike that the President is making good on his promise to “responsibly end” the U.S. mission in Iraq and is moving on to what matters most to American voters – jobs.

“Ending this war is not only in Iraq’s interest – it’s in our own. The United States has paid a huge price to put the future of Iraq in the hands of its people,” Mr. Obama said of the $800-billion (U.S.), seven-year-old war that bitterly split the nation under its initiator, George W. Bush, and claimed more than 4,400 U.S. troops. “Now, it is time to turn the page.”

Still, with about 120,000 U.S. soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan and few signs Mr. Obama’s troop surge there is meeting with the success that Mr. Bush’s 2007 version did in Iraq, the President remains almost as consumed by foreign affairs as was his predecessor.

-With Thanks to the Globe & Mail