Why is it that Barack Obama, a private citizen, can’t even express an opinion on the Israeli-Hamas conflict, yet Joe Biden can travel to the world’s hotspots? Because Biden is a Senator? Does anyone really believe that of the two roles Biden occupies — U.S. Senator and next Vice President of the United States — foreign leaders see him as the former? Even Reuters doesn’t list him as such.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Vice President-elect Joe Biden arrived in Baghdad Monday for talks with leaders of Iraq, where the withdrawal of some 140,000 American troops is seen as a key challenge facing the incoming U.S. administration.

The Delaware senator, who takes office with President-elect Barack Obama later this month, met President Jalal Talabani at his Baghdad residence.

The visit by the long-time chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee came at the tail end of a tour of southwest Asia that included stops in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where Obama wants to send more troops as he withdraws from Iraq.

Biden voted for the 2003 invasion of Iraq but later become a critic of the war and the way President George W. Bush executed it.

He is best known in Iraq as the author of a 2006 plan to divide the country into self-governing Sunni, Shi’ite and Kurdish enclaves — an idea that offended many Iraqi politicians and was quietly put on the back burner as violence ebbed.

I’m thinking that if a man recognized as the next VP who disagrees with the sitting President on Iraq can visit the country and its leaders without there being a “mixed signal”, then Barack Obama can express more than just “concern” over the situation unfolding in Gaza. But that would require the President-elect to do more than vote “present” before he absolutely must take a position.