Looks like the Obama campaign will have to trash the latest draft of Obama’s foreign policy talking points.
A German magazine quoted Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as saying that he backed a proposal by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months.
“U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months,” he said in an interview with Der Spiegel that was released Saturday.
“That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes,” he said.
But a spokesman for al-Maliki said his remarks “were misunderstood, mistranslated and not conveyed accurately.”
al-Maliki’s actual meaning more closely resembles the position of John McCain… so one has to wonder if the bungled translation was inf act bungled, or deliberately misquoted to try to give Obama a foreign policy credentials boost.
UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: And John McCain pretty much says it all about Obama’s ludicrous junket (H/T NRO’s The Corner):
My opponent, Senator Obama, announced his strategy for Afghanistan and Iraq before departing on a fact-finding mission that will include visits to both those countries. Apparently, he’s confident enough that he won’t find any facts that might change his opinion or alter his strategy. Remarkable.
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