Off the Deep End Posted by Michael Cohen

There's a interview in the Columbus Dispatch today with John McCain that signals what can only be considered a disturbing trend in the direction of his presidential campaign - it now appears that McCain will say anything to attack his opponent; truth be damned:

Anyone, any rational observer who observes Iraq knows that the surge has succeeded. It just has. The conditions on the ground are very clear. Sen. Obama refuses to acknowledge that it succeeded.

I believe that by his failure to acknowledge the success of the surge — much less his opposition to it — shows that he would rather lose a war than a political campaign.

Now on one level this is sort of a non sequiter argument. I'm not sure how failing to acknowledge the success of the surge is indicative of an individual who would rather lose a war than a political campaign. Considering that most Americans believe the surge was successful, isn't Obama's position actually bad politics. He could just say yes, the surge has succeeded, but I still think the troops come home and pretty much be in line with well over half the American people.

But to Ilan's point from earlier this week John McCain doesn't understand the surge. Quite simply, McCain is wrong about the surge . . . again.

Back in January 2007 when George Bush announced that he would be sending more troops to Iraq he listed several key criteria that would define its success:

This new strategy will not yield an immediate end to suicide bombings, assassinations, or IED attacks. Our enemies in Iraq will make every effort to ensure that our television screens are filled with images of death and suffering. Yet over time, we can expect to see Iraqi troops chasing down murderers, fewer brazen acts of terror, and growing trust and cooperation from Baghdad's residents.

Clearly these things have occurred but it's what is supposed to happen next that is the rub:

When this happens, daily life will improve, Iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders, and the government will have the breathing space it needs to make progress in other critical areas.

To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November.  To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis.  To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs.  To empower local leaders, Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year.  And to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation's political life, the government will reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution.

Now some of these measures have occurred like de-Baathification and plans for provincial elections. But some clearly have not. Most alarmingly, the Iraqis have still not passed an oil law and constitutional reforms remain a work in progress. They haven't made the sort of investments that Bush described 18 months ago and political accommodation and reconciliation has not occurred. McCain seems to believe that security improvements are the end all, be all in Iraq, but they are not and they never have been. Yet, this does not stop McCain from making this deplorable statement:

It's clear to me that anyone who fails to acknowledge the success of the surge would clearly have a political consideration.

By failing to acknowledge this lack of success and in turn the lack of ultimate success for the surge, McCain is the one who is not only being irrational, but in fact he is the one who is playing politics.

But what's even worse is that McCain is leaving out a critical part of the equation here. The implication of his comments is that Obama is making a strictly political decision to withdraw troops from Iraq, but in fact Obama's plans for Iraq are intimately connected to his plans for Afghanistan. In other words, Obama is making a strategic decision that Afghanistan is more important to America's national interests than Iraq.

Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven. Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been. As Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently pointed out, we won’t have sufficient resources to finish the job in Afghanistan until we reduce our commitment to Iraq.

Now John McCain may not agree with this, but his failure to even acknowledge it is pretty compelling evidence that "winning the war" is not his first agenda item. Instead it's playing politics with national security and misleading the American people with comments that intimate his opponent is a traitor.

Comments

[Eric Martin]

Now some of these measures have occurred like de-Baathification and plans for provincial elections.

Michael,

De-Baathification was passed, but the law was poorly worded and vague. It left much in the hands of the committees that would implement its provisions. And those committees are acting on sectarian impulses such that the law has ranged from ineffectual to counterproductive.

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/06/one-hundred-y-1.html

Also, the plans for provincial elections have just been vetoed by two of the members of the Presidency Council (Talabani and Mahdi).

So even those "gains" are suspect to say the least.

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plus a few independents and Republicans, at least among those who send in comments, are not afraid to praise the Bush administration's foreign policy initiatives if they merit it, or criticize them when appropriate.

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