The president makes a victory lap

By Pepe Escobar

United States President Barack Obama's up-to-the-last-minute secret Iraq drop-in was as virtual as a Nevada-based Predator drone pilot's visit to the tribal areas in Pakistan. Iraqis have every reason to say the president did not see Iraq - but the Pentagon in Iraq.

The date couldn't be more pregnant with meaning. Baghdad under Saddam Hussein fell to the US Marines Corps under George W Bush exactly six years ago this Thursday - light years of death and devastation ago. To prove his point, made rhetorically in Ankara at the Turkish parliament, that "the United States is not, and will never be, at war with Islam", Obama could have hit the definitive home run by going to Firdous Square and delivering a rousing speech to real, flesh-and-blood suffering Iraqis, Sunni and Shi'ites alike. Meeting a joyous 600 among the 139,000 US troops still occupying Iraq doesn't even come close.