Proxy War

Many in the commentariat pounced on Wednesday's sharp exchange over Iraq between John McCain and Barack Obama as a preview of the general election debate, should the Illinois senator get the Democratic nomination. But the dustup between the two leading candidates also gave us a glimpse into the growing divide within the U.S. military over how to split resources between Iraq and Afghanistan.

Indeed, the presidential campaign this year could also become a Pentagon proxy war, with Sen. McCain largely taking the side of Gen. David Petraeus, the commander in Iraq, and Obama more representing the interests of the Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey, who opposed the Bush-Petraeus "surge" and has openly worried about an Army that's "out of balance."

McCain and Obama fired at each other from two separate events Wednesday. Campaigning in Texas, McCain mocked Obama for suggesting that he would send troops back into Iraq "if Al Qaeda is forming a base there," as debate moderator Tim Russert put it. The Arizona Republican, assuming his already patented posture of the steady statesman correcting the bumbling upstart, said, "I have some news for Sen. Obama. Al Qaeda is in Iraq."

Hearing those remarks while stumping in Ohio, Obama was plainly intent on showing that he will brook no such treatment. "I have some news for John McCain," he shot back, "and that is that there was no such thing as Al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade … They took their eye off the people who were responsible for 9/11, and that would be Al Qaeda in Afghanistan that is stronger now than at any time since 2001."

As ammunition for their candidate's position, Obama's campaign is pointing to comments by Casey and other generals. A senior Obama adviser argued to me Thursday that his candidate, contrary to misunderstanding the challenge, is using a "wider lens" than McCain. "We don't have the luxury in this dangerous world to look solely at Iraq, and keep doubling down there," he said. "You've got to match strategy to resources."

The grim truth is that Al Qaeda is still flourishing in both Iraq and Afghanistan, with no end in sight, and the Pentagon currently does not have sufficient troops to deal with both crises. Even President Bush appeared to acknowledge the clash of priorities at a White House news conference Thursday morning. Asked about Obama's comment on Iraq, Bush remarked that Al Qaeda had been securing a base in Iraq for four years. But the president declined an opportunity to join McCain in directly criticizing or mocking Obama, and said, "One of the challenges we face is denying Al Qaeda a safe haven anywhere."