Following President Bush’s January 10, 2007, announcement of a troop surge in Iraq, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) “went on MSNBC to say, ‘I am not persuaded that the 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, it will do the reverse. I think it takes the pressure off the Iraqis to make the sort of political accommodations that every observer believes is the ultimate solution to the problems we face there. So I’m going to actively oppose the president’s proposal.’ “
– Peter Bergen, The Longest War, Page 283