No sitting president has ever recovered from the position Obama is in with less than a year to go to re-election. Yet he still stands a chance – because of the unbelievably low quality of his would-be Republican challengers.
Mr. Romney’s strategy this time involved never publicly making a play for Iowa, thereby lowering expectations. His absence was so glaring, it led the state’s GOP governor to warn: “Iowans don’t like to be ignored.”
All signs are seemingly against Barack Obama in the run-up to next year's election, yet his Republican adversaries can't seem to profit from that. Obama could end up with an undeserved victory.
The past eight years of courageous Iraqi resistance to the American occupation cost the occupiers more dearly than they had expected. This resistance, combined with the ignominy of dishonest justifications for the war and the subsequent occupation, is responsible for the Americans’ rushed decision to withdraw in this rather uncomfortable manner. Now the Americans are reduced to trying to ensure that their withdrawal does not spell the complete failure of their venture in Iraq and in the wider region.