A Wartime Leader Ends a War He Never Wanted

Patrols by American soldiers in Iraq will soon end with the scheduled troop withdrawal

WASHINGTON — In October 2002, a little-known Illinois state senator joined a rally in Chicago against the Iraq war, declaring: “I’m not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.” It was a defining moment for the young politician, who used this position to set himself apart in the race for the White House in 2008. To a remarkable degree, that same distinction between wars, smart and dumb, is still guiding President Obamaas he presides over ceremonies to mark the end of the Iraq war and defends his foreign policy in an election year.

In the coming days, Mr. Obama will speak to troops at Fort Bragg, N.C., attend the 112th Army-Navy football game and meet in Washington with Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. His goal, the White House said, will be to thank the troops for their sacrifice and put relations with Iraq on a more normal footing.

Administration officials said the events, however solemn, would also serve to remind voters that the president had fulfilled one of his central campaign pledges from 2008: to bring the Iraq war to a responsible close.

When Mr. Obama was asked Thursday to respond to charges by some Republican presidential candidates that he was practicing appeasement in his foreign policy, he referred to another war, in Afghanistan, where American troops have stalked and killed terrorism suspects with lethal efficiency.

“Ask Osama bin Laden and the 22 out of 30 top Al Qaeda leaders who’ve been taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement,” the president declared. “Or whoever’s left out there, ask them about that.”

The seeds for this approach were also planted in the 2002 speech, in which Mr. Obama said he did not oppose war against those who plotted the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Indeed, he said he supported President George W. Bush’s “pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance.”

Although Mr. Obama’s backers note that foreign policy is likely to play a limited role in 2012, they clearly hope he can reap a political benefit from being a different kind of wartime president.

Certainly, polls suggest that leaving Iraq is a no-lose proposition. In a CBS News poll last month, 77 percent of those surveyed said they approved of pulling out the troops by the end of 2011, while only 17 percent disapproved. Sixty-three percent of Republicans supported withdrawing by year’s end. And 67 percent of people said they did not think the war was worth its cost, in money or lost lives.

“A lot of people thought and said he would not be able to end the war in Iraq,” said Bill Burton, a former White House aide who is a senior strategist for Priorities USA Action, a political action committee that supports the Obama campaign. “This demonstrates that the president can be a strong leader, even in difficult circumstances, which is broader than just the Iraq war.”

Mr. Burton said he planned to send out a mass e-mail this weekend celebrating Mr. Obama’s achievement, and contrasting it to the positions taken by two leading Republican candidates, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.

Mr. Romney, in a statement after the president announced the withdrawal of the last troops from Iraq in October, accused him of being irresponsible, given Iraq’s precarious security situation, and asked whether his decision was a result of “naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government.” Mr. Gingrich told Fox News that he saw no advantage to troops remaining in Iraq beyond this year, though he faulted the president’s Iraq strategy as not being serious.

The White House has meticulously choreographed the waning weeks of the war. Last week, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. visited Baghdad to meet with Mr. Maliki and to thank Iraqi and American troops at a ceremony at Camp Victory, the sprawling base that served as the American military headquarters. Other events will be held in the next two weeks, as the military’s colors are folded in a mission-ending ceremony and the last convoys roll out into Kuwait, though the details are being withheld for security reasons.

But the White House is also being careful not to appear to exploit a solemn milestone for political gain. A spokesman for the Obama campaign declined to comment on its plans, if any, for marking the moment.

Such caution is warranted for another reason, analysts said: the unpredictability of postwar Iraq. Mr. Bush’s landing on an aircraft carrier in May 2003, with a banner declaring “Mission Accomplished” behind him, was hailed as brilliant political theater before it became a metaphor for hubris.

“They are making an implicit bet that the facts on the ground in Iraq will not look substantially worse a year from now,” said Peter D. Feaver, an expert on public opinion and war who was a special adviser for strategic planning in the National Security Council during the Bush administration. “The facts on the ground matter, and have a way of undoing what may seem politically expedient.”

For all the attention Iraq brought Mr. Obama, Mr. Feaver noted, he has not spoken about it often as president. He will also face some delicate decisions next week, including how to acknowledge his predecessor’s role.

Given the historic importance of the war, there was nothing inappropriate about marking its end in a high-profile way, Mr. Feaver said. But he added, “It is not without political risk for the president.”