From the NY Sun Obama advisor Colin Kahl writing for the center-left Center for a New American Security in a paper entitle “Stay on Success: A Policy of Conditional Engagement” writes:

“the U.S. should aim to transition to a sustainable over-watch posture (of perhaps 60,000–80,000 forces) by the end of 2010 (although the specific timelines should be the byproduct of negotiations and conditions on the ground).”

The Sun reports Kahl is a “day-to-day” advisor on Obama’s working group on Iraq.

Both Mr. Kahl and a senior Obama campaign adviser reached yesterday said the paper does not represent the campaign’s Iraq position. Nonetheless, the paper could provide clues as to the ultimate size of the residual American force the candidate has said would remain in Iraq after the withdrawal of combat brigades. The campaign has not publicly discussed the size of such a force in the past.

This is not the first time the opinion of an adviser to the Obama campaign has differed with the candidate’s stated Iraq policy. In February, Mr. Obama’s first foreign policy tutor, Samantha Power, told BBC that the senator’s current Iraq plan would likely change based on the advice of military commanders in 2009. She has since resigned her position as a formal adviser.

My take? I have been saying for awhile now to anyone I talk to, don’t expect if any of the three candidates get into office that we will have left Iraq anytime soon. The realities on the ground and the political realities are far too complex to expect every since troop out in a year.