Ugh. I am so sick of this nonsense. Fighting 7 years in Afghanistan for what? We only get temporary gains in small pockets. The Surge worked because we changed our tactics - partnering with the Iraqis to bring security to their neighborhoods - as long as we have large-scale bases and military operations in these places there will always be a large groundswell of anti-American sentiment to draw from. We can continue to disrupt al-Qaeda networks in Iraq and Afghanistan without huge military operations and nation-building exercises that only draw opposition.
Although I respect John McCain, I think he has fallen of course and sounds like a half-crazed vet on these issues. This is not the time nor the situation for these strategies. They have failed us too many times in the past.
THE WORLD FROM WASHINGTON
Michael Hirsh
Proxy War
The spat between John McCain and Barack Obama over Iraq reflects tensions within the military itself.
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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."
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