Analysis: Obama Seeks to 'Turn the Page' on Iraq

Updated: 27 minutes ago

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Joseph Schuman Senior Correspondent

AOL News

(Sept. 1) -- Twice during his Oval Office speech, President Barack Obama's emotions seemed to upstage the words he was addressing to the nation about the formal end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq.

Obama's familiar professorial tone Tuesday night dropped somberly when he paid tribute to the more than 4,400 American service members who lost their lives there, and it leaped when he declared with more than a hint of exasperation that "it is time to turn the page."

If his most repeated theme was praise and gratitude for troops whose mission is "completed" in Iraq, the speech, less than 20 minutes in length, was all about transitions: from a military focus on Iraq to one aimed at ending the threat of al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan; from being a nation at war to one focused on the "most urgent task" of restoring the economy; from confronting U.S. enemies through war to a strategy grounded in diplomacy that includes this week's new push for peace in the Middle East.

There was little new in the announced end to the American combat mission in Iraq itself. The last combat-oriented brigade left the country in August. The formal change in mission doesn't mean the 50,000 U.S. soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen in Iraq are done fighting insurgents of one stripe or another. Iraqi forces, with an uncertain political leadership, have not yet shown they can secure the country on their own. And no one expects an end to American casualties there.

But considering the gravity of the subject and venue of the speech -- the second Oval Office oration of his presidency -- Obama's goal may still have been to tell Americans that something has changed.

More than 19 months into his presidency -- and two months before an election that could shake up the House and Senate -- Obama may be trying to move beyond the agenda he inherited from President George W. Bush.

The White House announced earlier in the day that Obama called Bush from Air Force One while en route to meet with veterans of Iraqi combat at Fort Bliss, Texas, but provided no details of their brief conversation.

"It's well known that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset," Obama said, before complimenting Bush's "support for our troops or his love of country and commitment to our security."

Obama noted that much had changed since the night 7 1/2 years ago when Bush announced from the Oval Office that the U.S. was leading an invasion of Iraq.

"A war to disarm a state became a fight against an insurgency. Terrorism and sectarian warfare threatened to tear Iraq apart," Obama said, reminding Americans of why Iraq had become such a source of national bitterness and one of the factors in his election. "Thousands of Americans gave their lives; tens of thousands have been wounded. Our relations abroad were strained. Our unity at home was tested."

Obama congratulated the American troops and civilians who fought and worked since the war began to give Iraq "the opportunity to embrace a new destiny, even though many challenges remain."

But "the United States has paid a huge price to put the future of Iraq in the hands of its people," he noted. "We have sent our young men and women to make enormous sacrifices in Iraq and spent vast resources abroad at a time of tight budgets at home."

By withdrawing from Iraq, the U.S. has been able to shift resources to the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where "as we speak, al-Qaida continues to plot against us, and its leadership remains anchored," Obama reminded his audience, adding that even the bolstered deployment in Afghanistan is only temporary and scheduled to started winding down next year. "Make no mistake -- this transition will begin, because open-ended war serves neither our interests nor the Afghan people's."

And returning to a key theme of his election campaign, Obama said U.S. leadership on the global stage must start "within our own borders," where "we must tackle those challenges at home with as much energy and grit and sense of common purpose as our men and women in uniform who have served abroad."

Citing the urgency of putting back to work the millions of Americans who lost their jobs in the recession he confronted on taking office, Obama again tacitly laid the blame on his predecessor, and the "trillion dollars" spent on war during a decade when "we have not done what is necessary to shore up the foundation of our own prosperity."

But if the speech and its importance for Obama is all about "turning the page," what's far from clear is whether he can.

A day earlier, Obama talked about the persistently ailing economy and weak job market in remarks that left the impression his administration has run out of ideas for a quick turnaround.

Stability in Afghanistan may be one of the key goals of a counterterrorism strategy that has shifted back to where the 9/11 attacks were planned, but there's little evidence yet that a stable democracy has taken root there, or that the U.S. and its allies are defeating the al-Qaida-allied Taliban. Pakistan, perhaps an even more important theater in the fight against al-Qaida, remains a mess when it comes to the kind of governance Washington considers necessary for taming the Islamist threat.

And as Israeli, Palestinian and other Middle Eastern leaders convene in Washington for meetings at the White House and State Department, the Obama team has offered no concrete reasons to believe that it will fair better than previous administrations at forging a two-state solution agreeable to all the players.

This is, Obama said, "an age without surrender ceremonies," when clean breaks with past conflicts at home or abroad are hard to distinguish.

And if Iraq now represents a new kind of mission for the U.S., the global challenges facing Obama are not all that different from those he found on taking office.