McCain Between Iraq and a Hard Place on Afghanistan
Neocon godfather Irving Kristol once famously said that "a neoconservative is a liberal who's been mugged by reality." By that standard, the political right will need to coin an altogether new term to describe John McCain in the wake of the beating he has taken over the past several days. In the span of just two weeks, McCain has seen Barack Obama's call for a strategic refocus from Iraq to Afghanistan validated by the Pentagon and in Baghdad. And now, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has come out in favor of Obama's approach to drawing down U.S. forces in his country.
In an interview published Saturday in the German publication Der Spiegel, Maliki announced his idea of a "time horizon" for the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq very much resembles that of Senator Obama:
"U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."
While Maliki's statement is part posturing aimed to gain leverage in the troubled talks over the watered-down status of forces agreement with the Bush administration, it is clear rejection of the perpetual American presence along the lines of South Korea or Germany that John McCain has repeatedly trumpeted.
Despite the indisputable security progress of the Iraq surge he endorsed, McCain has seen events on the ground rapidly alter the political landscape in Obama's favor. At almost every turn, the developments of the past two weeks have made Obama look prescient indeed.
On July 3, Chairman of the Join Chiefs Admiral Michael Mullen confirmed Barack Obama's assessment that the ongoing commitment of American resources to Iraq was a massive barrier to the U.S. from stemming the growing threat from Al Qaeda and the Taliban along the Afghan-Pakistani frontier. As Mullen bluntly put it:
"I don't have troops I can reach for, brigades I can reach, to send into Afghanistan until I have a reduced requirement in Iraq. Afghanistan has been and remains an economy-of-force campaign, which by definition means we need more forces there."
Meanwhile, the negotiations with Baghdad over the long-term U.S. presence in Iraq favored by President Bush and John McCain hit an impasse. Prime Minister Maliki's position was echoed by foreign minister Mouwafak al-Rubaie who announced, "We will not accept any memorandum of understanding that doesn't have specific dates to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq." By July 12, even U.S. officials acknowledged "we are talking about dates," adding that leaders in Baghdad "are all telling us the same thing."
On Tuesday this week, Barack Obama delivered a major address on the path forward in Iraq and Afghanistan. Again noting the "the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 are still at large," Obama highlighted John McCain's claim that "Afghanistan is not in trouble because of our diversion to Iraq." But after Obama promised to "send at least two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan, and use this commitment to seek greater contributions - with fewer restrictions - from NATO allies," McCain tried to top him, with disastrous results.
McCain's failed one-upsmanship started with a call for three brigades for Afghanistan. But the McCain campaign quickly ran into trouble over whether or not their man was promising more U.S. troops or relying instead on NATO units which to date have not been forthcoming. Within 24 hours, McCain was backing off those brigades, instead speaking in vague terms that, "We need to work that out, we need to have greater participation from our NATO allies, and we need a lot more help from our NATO allies." Worse still, on July 17th, a 2003 video surfaced in which John McCain almost comically proclaimed that the United States "can muddle through" in Afghanistan while focusing on Iraq.
Even the McCain campaign's attacks on Obama on Afghanistan boomeranged. When South Carolina Senator Jim Demint (R-SC) sent Obama a letter blasting him for not holding subcommittee meetings on Afghanistan, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Joe Biden (D-DE) blasted back:
"Under my chairmanship the Foreign Relations Committee has addressed most Afghanistan issues at the Full Committee level," Biden wrote. "I believe that this is the best way of ensuring the most comprehensive examination of the complex issues involved, and of ensuring the highest-level Administration participation."
"Senator Obama has displayed great leadership on this issue: he called nearly a year ago for the deployment of at least two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan - it has since become the accepted position of a wide range of U.S. military officials, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Biden added.
And as it turns out, John McCain has attended exactly zero of those Committee meetings over the last two years.
Complicating matters further for McCain, the threat from Al Qaeda in Iraq has dramatically diminished even as Bin Laden's cadres are resurgent in the tribal areas of Pakistan. After AQI's devastating defeat in Mosul, the organization is without an urban base. As Stephen Biddle of the Council of Foreign Relations put it, Al Qaeda in Iraq is being reduced to "furtive terrorists."
And Iraq commander and incoming CENTCOM commander General David Petraeus largely agreed. Even as Barack Obama began his visit to Afghanistan, General Petraeus acknowledged Al Qaeda may be considering shifting focus to its original home base in Afghanistan:
"We do think that there is some assessment ongoing as to the continued viability of al-Qaida's fight in Iraq. They're not going to abandon Iraq. They're not going to write it off. None of that. But what they certainly may do is start to provide some of those resources that would have come to Iraq to Pakistan, possibly Afghanistan."
And to be sure, President Bush isn't helping his would-be Republican successor. On Friday, Bush reversed course on years of bashing Democrats on timelines for withdrawal, agreeing with Maliki on a "general time horizon" for a U.S. pull-out. And as Iranian-sponsored attacks in Iraq are on the decline, Bush signaled a major shift by sending a senior State Department official to the talks on Iran's nuclear program while considering an American diplomatic presence in Tehran.
Back in 2006, Stephen Colbert introduced President Bush to what can be called "Colbert's Law." As he put it, "reality has a well-known liberal bias." Over the past two weeks, John McCain started learning that the hard way.
UPDATE: Back in 2004, McCain acknowledged that "I think it's obvious that we would have to leave" if asked by a sovereign Iraqi government. Now, the McCain campaign claims Maliki's statement of support for Obama's approach is just for Iraqi domestic political consumption. "His domestic politics require him to be for us getting out," as an anonymous McCain aide put it.
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No way. The press will always say McCain is better on national security, no matter what else happens. Their story will always be, "see, he was right about the surge."
Posted by Tim on July 19, 2008 5:11 PMFirst of all, thanks much for a series of interesting and informative articles.
That said… :-)
"Iraq and a hard place" is a *really* worn out pun. In particular, someone used it as a Daily Kos headline (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/19/13564/8514/365/553918) the same day you did.
"Despite the indisputable security progress of the Iraq surge he endorsed…" I dispute it. Most of the increased "security" in Iraq appears to have come from the dramatic recent religious segregation of Iraqi society. America had little to do with this development beyond being ineffective enough to make it both possible and necessary.
"Stephen Colbert introduced President Bush about what can be called 'Colbert's Law'" is grammatically not so nice. "Stephen Colbert introduced President Bush to 'Colbert's Law'" would be clearer and better.
Keep up the good work, though!
Posted by PO8 on July 20, 2008 5:37 PMPO8,
Thanks for the catch on the typo.
As for the overused "Iraq and a Hard Place" line, if you return to DailyKos, you'll note that the post you cite was "Crossposted at Perrspectives." That is, the two pieces have the same title because they have the same author!
Posted by Perrspective on July 20, 2008 8:37 PMWell it is a great think of McCain to return the American troops from the Afghanistan and Iraq.It will help in maintaining peace and harmony in the world.
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asif
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Posted by asif on July 22, 2008 7:16 AM