According to senior White House sources, President Barack Obama will be making a speech at the end of August regarding the War in Iraq. (source) The address is certainly expected as US combat forces are departing the country and all combat troops are expected to be out by August 31. What remains unknown is how this president will frame the war he consistently opposed and its outcome in that speech.

Continued...

First the sure things:

Count on President Obama to give himself lots of credit for the success in Iraq. He will undoubtedly portray himself as the victorious Commander-In-Chief who both won the war and kept his promise to end it. In other words he followed the military and political battle plans instituted under former President George W. Bush but he will take credit for their results.

Expect Mr. Obama to honor, praise and thank the US troops. Well deserved and most likely sincere but expect it to be a relatively short part of the speech. After all, the military is not traditionally part of the Democratic Party's political base and many groups that are part of that base do not appreciate long, lingering tributes to our service men and women.

The third pretty much guaranteed element of the address will be a thank you to our international partners and the Iraqis themselves. Again well deserved and most likely sincere, but expect this to take up much more time he will spend thanking our own troops. President Obama never misses an opportunity to let the world know he does not believe in American exceptionalism and every other nation involved must be portrayed as playing a larger, more important part in any success than the United States.

Finally expect at least one story about Barack Obama. This president is incapable of making a speech that does not include some allegedly motivational tale in which he is the star. This will be in addition to the first point above (taking credit for the victory) and will most likely include some mention of family (his or that of a soldier) added in an attempt to show Mr. Obama's often invisible warm fuzzy side.

Next the maybes:

After the last of our combat forces have left Iraq, 50,000 non-combat troops will remain Will President Obama remind those in his anti-war, Code Pink, idealistically immature student base that he didn't bring all the troops home from Iraq? While leaving support and security forces there is the responsible thing to do to help insure the existence of a democratic Iraq, will this president be quick to advertise his decision to do the right thing instead of what much of his base constantly demands?

On a related note, while hoping to bask in the glow of those who will believe it was he who ended the war in Iraq, will President Obama remind his audience that there are still battles raging in Afghanistan; the "right” war he wanted to fight?

Third, the doubtfuls:

Don't expect President Obama to mention or credit "the surge" - former President George W. Bush's 2007 increase in the number of American troops in Iraq - which all experts agree turned the tide in the war. While this was a significant part of the campaign and no honest review of the war would be complete without it, it probably won't be included in the Obama address. That would come too close to giving the former president (and continued political target of Obama & Company) any honest credit for a tough decision proven to have been absolutely correct.

Lastly, it will be virtually impossible for President Obama to include the value of the War in Iraq in his victory speech. Starting when he was just an Illinois State Senator in 2002, Mr. Obama spoke out against the war which he called "the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income - to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression." (source) No one who was so loudly and consistently against a conflict can now claim that victory in that conflict has made the fight worthwhile without seeming like a complete hypocrite.

In summary, expect a self-serving address with perfunctory acknowledgements to some Americans, no mention at all of others who were instrumental in the victory, glowing tributes to those non-American participants and a rewriting of history with regard to his own participation. In short, just another Obama speech.