No, I don't.
But presidential eloquence alone won't save these Iraqis. There is one obvious way to clear the logjam: an airlift to remove our Iraqi friends from danger.
There is plenty of precedent for such an airlift. In 1975, after initially abandoning massive numbers of our South Vietnamese allies, Gerald Ford finally authorized a massive airlift to evacuate them to Guam and, eventually, to the United States.
In 1996, Bill Clinton ordered Operation Pacific Haven, which flew 6,000 Iraqi Kurds and other opposition activists from Iraqi Kurdestan to Guam, after Saddam Hussein's troops invaded the region. The operation took only two weeks, and security checks were conducted in Guam. If Obama ordered a similar airlift, security checks could also be conducted in Guam.
There are more recent precedents, too. The Poles, Danes, and Australians airlifted their Iraqi staff out out of the country; after the massacre in Basra, the British returned and flew out endangered staff.
Are we less honorable than the Poles, Danes, Australians, and Brits? I'll hold off on an answer. Yet, senior administration officials tell me no airlift is being considered.
Perhaps the Obama team fears the Vietnam comparison will make it look bad. It will look far worse if Iraqis we pledged to save are slaughtered - because they didn't get their visas in time.
Administration officials also tell me that efforts to clear the backlog will become more intense as the end of the year approaches. But if those efforts fail, it may be too late to organize an airlift.
In 2007, Obama said we had a "moral obligation" to those Iraqis who helped us. History will judge him on how he honors that pledge.
E-mail columnist Trudy Rubin at trubin@phillynews.com.
