The announcement by President Barack Obama that American troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the year's end, meaning within 2 months, is calculated to bring the administration electoral advantage.
The move solidifies the support from Obama's base and this is consonant with the increasingly populist policies that the administration defends, such as getting the rich to pay their fair share, and that the Republicans denounce as class warfare. Obama's sympathy for the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators is also part and parcel of this policy.
Obama, in his announcement, was quick to tie the withdrawal from Iraq to the economic issue by creating the impression of a "peace dividend" generated by savings created by withdrawing from both Iraq and Afghanistan and diverting the expenditures to boost the American economy.
The administration is counting on the fact that Americans are weary of military intervention abroad so that Republican criticism of the withdrawal will backfire against the GOP.
The administration decision also comes against the background of a failure to negotiate an immunity agreement with the Iraqi government. This means that US Armed Forces personnel can be sued or indicted in Iraqi courts and be punished by them. The Iraqi government, while interested in American troops remaining, wants to flaunt Iraqi sovereignty.
The leading Republican candidates are willingly walking into the "trap" of attacking the withdrawal. One of the current leading contenders, Mitt Romney, claims that the withdrawal is hasty and jeopardizes the victories that have been purchased by the sacrifice of lives of American servicemen. He also hinted that Obama was going counter to the advice of his military advisors, saying,
"The unavoidable question is whether this decision is the result of a naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government."
Texas Governor Rick Perry warned that the accelerated timetable was putting American servicemen at risk: "The last thing you want to do is put those men and women's lives in peril, and I think that's what the president's done by making a political statement to his base that he's going to be out of Iraq by a certain date."
Analysts associated with Republicans also joined in the attack.
Fred Kagan wrote: "It squanders the enormous opportunity to forge an alliance with Iraq at a time when such an alliance would be of tremendous value to the US. It dramatically increases the likelihood that the new and unstable Iraqi democratic experiment — already under attack from an authoritarian Prime Minister and a hostile IslamicRepublic of Iran — will fail."
Former UN ambassador John Bolton claimed that Obama had wanted to withdraw from Iraq from the inception of his presidency and that now he got what he wanted.