Aimed at home rather than at the people there, though. Obama had to go to Iraq to show support for the troops, as well as tell Americans he'll be sane about any withdrawal, not do an immediate surrender-flight as the lunatics and US-haters at home have demanded. He raises serious political-economic concerns, which will be more precisely defined once he brings people into his Cabinet and we see if the Dems in Congress react wrongly to any strong Dem vote this year and lunge too far leftward, but I'm confident that he on his own wouldn't do anything stupid.

A minor side benifit is the personal contact, the introduction , the hand shake.
A biggger benifit would be talking to the troops without supervision by superiors, to boost morale and to hear their version of what 'on the ground ' means, as well as to relay information about what those 'on the ground' in areas other than their own are experiencing. 'On the ground' means diffferent things in different areas.

In the end, though, it is civilain command and the CIC who make policy decisions.and assigns missions, not he other way around. . The boots on the ground are there to execuete policy, not to determine what it should be.
McCain totally misunderstands that, and Bush uses it when it suits politics, not policy.