A spectacular column from a totally unexpected medium. In an editorial today, the Washington Post slams Barack Obama for having “foolish consistency”, wrongly arguing that the surge wouldn’t work, lobbing unfair charges against McCain and Bush, and being “ultimately indifferent to the war’s outcome”.

Mr. Obama then confirmed his own foolish consistency. Early last year, when the war was at its peak, the Democratic candidate proposed a timetable for withdrawing all U.S. combat forces in slightly more than a year. Yesterday, with bloodshed at its lowest level since the war began, Mr. Obama endorsed the same plan. After hinting earlier this month that he might “refine” his Iraq strategy after visiting the country and listening to commanders, Mr. Obama appears to have decided that sticking to his arbitrary, 16-month timetable is more important than adjusting to the dramatic changes in Iraq.

The Post says Obama’s charge that McCain and Bush don’t want to leave isn’t fair. McCain wants most troops home by 2013 and Bush has withdrawn 5 brigades this year. It also points out the main difference between the two sides’ plans for withdrawal: The Iraqis and McCain want withdrawal based on conditions on the ground, while Obama in indifferent to whether or not Iraqis can stand on their own before leaving.

At the time he first proposed his timetable, Mr. Obama argued — wrongly, as it turned out — that U.S. troops could not stop a sectarian civil war. He conceded that a withdrawal might be accompanied by a “spike” in violence. Now, he describes as “an achievable goal” that “we leave Iraq to a government that is taking responsibility for its future — a government that prevents sectarian conflict and ensures that the al-Qaeda threat which has been beaten back by our troops does not reemerge.” How will that “true success” be achieved? By the same pullout that Mr. Obama proposed when chaos in Iraq appeared to him inevitable.

The Post wants to know why Obama would take a position in advance — giving a speech yesterday — before even visiting Iraq for the first time in over two years. Commanders will likely tell him that a 16-month withdrawal is logistically impossible and Obama has yet to meet one-on-one with General David Petraeus. If he’s authentically interested in consulting military commanders, why is he setting his policies in advance?

Now for the best part of the editorial:

Indeed: The message that the Democrat sends is that he is ultimately indifferent to the war’s outcome — that Iraq “distracts us from every threat we face” and thus must be speedily evacuated regardless of the consequences. That’s an irrational and ahistorical way to view a country at the strategic center of the Middle East, with some of the world’s largest oil reserves. Whether or not the war was a mistake, Iraq’s future is a vital U.S. security interest. If he is elected president, Mr. Obama sooner or later will have to tailor his Iraq strategy to that reality.

Good for WaPo.