EXCERPT FROM:
“Turning the Page in Iraq”
A speech.
We must also keep faith with Iraqis who kept faith with us.
One tragic outcome of this war is that the Iraqis who stood with America—the interpreters, embassy workers, and subcontractors—are being targeted for assassination.
An Iraqi named Laith who worked for an American organization told a journalist, “Sometimes I feel like we’re standing in line for a ticket, waiting to die.” And yet our doors are shut. In April, we admitted exactly one Iraqi refugee—just one!
That is not how we treat our friends. That is not how we take responsibility for our own actions. That is not who we are as Americans. It’s time to at least fill the seven thousand slots we pledged to Iraqi refugees and to be open to accepting even more Iraqis at risk.
Keeping this moral obligation is a key part of how we turn the page in Iraq. Because what’s at stake is bigger than this war—it’s our global leadership.
Now is a time to be bold. We must not stay the course or take the conventional path because the other course is unknown.
To quote Dr. Brzezinski: we must not allow ourselves to become “prisoners of uncertainty.”
—Candidate Barack Obama
September 12, 2007
Clinton, Iowa