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The last frontier of flip-flops approaches for Barack Obama, and even his surrogates can't seem to guess which way the wind blows on any given day. In three different appearances over the last two days, David Axelrod, Susan Rice, and Claire McCaskill all offered competing visions of Obama's policy on Iraq. First, we have Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, insisting that his January 2007 plan was still operative yesterday: ..."he’s always said that he would listen to the advice of commanders on the ground, that that would factor into his thinking. He’s also said we have to be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. So he’s been very consistent on this point."
"Because the commander-in-chief sets the mission, Charlie. That's not the role of the generals. And one of the things that's been interesting a out the president's approach lately has been to say, 'Well, I'm just taking cues from General Petraeus.' Well, the president sets the mission. The general and our troops carry out that mission.
However, on the same day, Senator Claire McCaskill — Obama’s campaign co-chair — told MS-NBC that advice on the ground wouldn’t deflect Obama from his commitment to withdraw troops or change his plans at all.
He has said that the best military advice he’s received leads us to believe that we can safely withdraw our forces at the pace of one to two combat brigades per month, and depending on the number of combat brigades he inherits, our best estimate is that that could be accomplished in roughly 16 months. That’s not a deadline. That’s a timetable, and obviously if Senator Obama has said on numerous occasions, he will listen to his commanders on the ground, he will follow and heed their advice as he decides how at the strategic level we must proceed. So he will do this very carefully and responsibly as he always said but he will do it.