President Obama delivered an address Tuesday night to mark the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq. While the speech featured no surprises, it is memorable both for its tone and for what was not said. The change of status in Iraq, however, may not be a harbinger for course correction in the United States.

Every elected President of the United States since Wilson has left office, whether through retirement or death, physically much older than at inauguration. Administrations of both parties have made tough decisions on when and how to employ military force abroad. Historians will long debate the merits of decisions made by various commanders-in-chief. The most complicated of these decisions, however, occur when one administration inherits a conflict from another.

Harry Truman inherited a war from FDR, and made some tough, much debated decisions that shaped American foreign policy for fifty years. After concluding the war he inherited, President Truman led the nation into another conflict, the Korean War, which resulted in an armistice after he left office. A long, costly conflict in Southeast Asia would only a few years later outlast several U.S. administrations. The latter conflict shook landscape of American politics in ways still being felt.

In this century, President Bush led the country into two distinct, yet related conflicts in one of the most volatile regions of the last fifty years. One of these, the conflict in Afghanistan, has fostered more good will than the other, the conflict in Iraq. President Obama inherited both conflicts, but like Truman, who inherited the disaster that was the Second World War,  history will judge him on his handling of events independently of those of his predecessor.

As a candidate for the office he now holds, Barack Obama vowed to end the war in Iraq. However, he did so on the timetable established by his predecessor. Effectively, President Obama has stayed the course in Iraq. While correct in several portions of his remarks, such as the resillience and strength of the U.S. armed forces, the forty-third President of the United States, Obama did too little to acknowledge historical reality.

Perhaps one of the better speeches delivered by President Obama, the address Tuesday evening was both precise and strategic. Left unsaid, for example, was the fact that the Iraq withdrawal carried out under this administration occurred according to the timetable established by President Bush. While this probably the correct corse to take, it is disappointing that a candidacy built around opposition to the Iraq conflict resulted in a maintenance of existing policy.

If it was his intention to follow the Bush policy, candidate Obama ought to have said so during the last presidential campaign. Instead, President Obama has taken credit for the departure arranged by his predecessor. It seems as if Barack Obama decided he did not want to own the Iraq conflict the way he now does that still being waged in Afghanistan. Such is another sad reminder that the “fundamental change” brought to the country in January of last year did not extend to the political class.

Last 5 posts by James Kane

• A November to Remember - November 8th, 2010
• On hope and fear - October 18th, 2010
• Expecting Different Results - September 12th, 2010
• Employing a losing strategy - August 7th, 2010
• In Defense of Michael Steele - July 9th, 2010