Voting for Commander in Chief
EDITORIALS Voting for Commander in Chief It would be hard to design a better test for the job of commander in chief than the real-life test senators John McCain and Barack Obama have undergone...
...forge relationships with local leaders, which by the way is proceeding in Anbar province...
...Both candidates pledged to prevent a second Holocaust...
...Here, doves are reborn as hawks, and liberals are turned into “pragmatists...
...McCain wants to increase pressure until the Iranians understand that their interest lies in reaching a diplomatic solution...
...He must prove that a 46year-old senator, a talented Chicago pol with a thin r?sum...
...EDITORIALS Voting for Commander in Chief It would be hard to design a better test for the job of commander in chief than the real-life test senators John McCain and Barack Obama have undergone in the last two years...
...build intelligence networks...
...McCain acknowledged “many, many mistakes since 2003” and the diffi culty of reversing them...
...McCain set forth his in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute on January 5, 2007 (at an event marking the release of AEI’s “Choosing Victory,” which I wrote, outlining a strategy like the one Bush later ordered...
...Once in offi ce, the one elected must perform...
...He committed an additional fi ve Army brigades and two Marine battalions to Iraq with the mission of protecting the Iraqi population...
...It was as close as a presidential candidate could get to showing how he would respond to a national security crisis without already being in the White House...
...First, it would cause “more casualties and extra hardships for our brave fi ghting men and women...
...This allowed Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to commit Iraqi Security Forces directly against the last remaining illegal militias in Iraq, clearing them out of Basra and Sadr City—weaning “the populace off their reliance on militias for safety,” as McCain had put it...
...Its president denies the Holocaust and threatens to wipe Israel off the map...
...President Bush has offered more bounty to Iran in exchange for a suspension of uranium enrichment...
...Sounds nice...
...In his speech, McCain predicted what the surge would achieve...
...So what happened...
...and non-U.N...
...Meanwhile, American troops established bonds with local leaders, as McCain had said they would, which led to the expansion of the “Anbar Awakening” movement throughout central Iraq...
...Ah, but we have entered the Obama zone, where conditions are not conditions, where Ahmadinejad is and is not really the leader of Iran, where the Iranian Revolutionary Guards isn’t a terrorist group one year but is the next, where Iran is simultaneously a “tiny” and a “grave” threat, and where the absence of American combat troops in Iraq actually increases U.S...
...In the media, Obama repeatedly predicted that the surge would fail...
...troops in stopping sectarian violence...
...Still, the consequences of defeat would be “catastrophic...
...In accomplishing this, U.S...
...It’s a tall order in Obama’s case...
...I think it takes pressure off the Iraqis to arrive at the sort of political accommodation that every observer believes is the ultimate solution to the problems we face there...
...The day the president announced the new policy, Obama told Larry King he “did not see anything” in the president’s surge that would “make a signifi cant dent in the sectarian violence...
...This would “pave the way for a political settlement...
...Obama, though, wants his approach to begin with “aggressive, principled diplomacy without self-defeating preconditions...
...But then it would bring violence under control...
...Read it alongside John McCain’s speech to AIPAC, and you’ll be struck by the similarities...
...The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat...
...Abizaid said he had discussed the usefulness of a surge of U.S...
...The two men brought different backgrounds to the test, of course...
...and wean the populace off their reliance on militias for safety...
...president knocking on his door—a supplicant— and U.S...
...He must downplay the kumbaya rhetoric and irresponsible national security votes, and talk tough while inventing shifty rationalizations for prior weakness...
...His bottom line: “By surging troops and bringing security to Baghdad and other areas, we will give the Iraqis and their partners the best possible chances to succeed...
...McCain called for a minimum of three to fi ve additional brigades in Baghdad and at least one in Anbar province...
...But neither presidential candidates nor the commander in chief gets to choose the tests that history brings...
...Their mission, he said, would be to implement the thus far elusive ‘hold’ element of the military’s clear-hold-build strategy, to maintain security in cleared areas, to protect the population and critical infrastructure, and to impose the government’s authority —essential elements of a traditional counterinsurgency strategy...
...President Clinton pledged major inducements for Iran to liberalize...
...Obama, moreover, is willing to lead tough and principled diplomacy with the appropriate Iranian leader at a time and place of my choosing, if—and only if—it can advance the interests of the United States...
...And he was specifi c about the tasks troops would perform: “establish local outposts...
...Obama’s “responsible, phased redeployment of our troops from Iraq” would also redound to Iran’s strategic benefi t. The policy would erase the security and political gains the United States and its Iraqi allies have made in the last year and a half...
...Not having traveled to Iraq since January 2006—before the Samarra Mosque bombing, the explosion of sectarian violence, and the two failed U.S...
...Still nothing...
...The same day, he said on MSNBC, I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there...
...So I am going to actively oppose the president’s proposal...
...Only after they refused the offer—again—would Obama “ratchet up the pressure...
...We will open up lines of communication, build an agenda, coordinate closely with our allies, and evaluate the potential for progress...
...Al Qaeda in Iraq was dealt what CIA director Michael Hayden now assesses as “a near strategic defeat...
...We would be back where we started, except the Iranian regime would have denied the leader of the Great Satan’s demands in person...
...Obama presented his in the “Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007” (S...
...engage in economic reconstruction activities...
...In January 2007, McCain had been a senator for 10 years and had served in the military for 23 years...
...Thus Obama would make an offer that the Iranians have repeatedly rejected, except he would do it in person—at a historic summit, a propaganda coup for the mullahs...
...And both promised to deal with this threat through U.N...
...I think he is wrong, and I think the American people believe he’s wrong...
...What would have happened if Obama’s bill had passed...
...Frederick W. Kagan, for the Editors The Iran Challenge The Iranian regime supports violent extremists and challenges us across the region...
...The Europeans have been talking to the Iranians for years...
...This: If you abandon your dangerous nuclear program, support for terror, and threats to Israel, there will be meaningful incentives— including the lifting of sanctions, and political and economic integration with the international community...
...And U.S...
...Worse, it would “prevent the Iraqis from doing more, from taking more responsibility for their own future...
...McCain cited the “excellent” track record of U.S...
...oversee other employment-generating projects...
...attempts to quell that violence—Obama relied on others’ testimony in assessing the situation on the ground...
...But don’t be fooled...
...Barack Obama’s approach differed from McCain’s in its basis as well as its goals and methods...
...President Bush ordered the surge...
...forces partnered with Iraqi troops precisely as McCain had suggested, helping them “hold” areas that they had jointly “cleared...
...All this the Americans would do “in cooperation with the Iraqi forces until such time as the Iraqis can do it on their own...
...It would breathe new life into the radicals—many sponsored by the Iranian regime—who seek a failed state in Iraq...
...troops with “every divisional commander, General Casey, the corps commander, General Dempsey,” and all had agreed that a surge of troops would not “add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq...
...It would lead to more violence, not less, and to a weaker Iraqi government, not a stronger one...
...Barack Obama, June 4, 2008 So begins the great transformation, whereby a dovish primary candidate mutates into a (moderately) hawkish nominee...
...troops retreating from Iraq, be moved to negotiate with the United States...
...And until we acknowledge that reality—we can send 15,000 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000 more troops, I don’t know any expert on the region or any military offi cer that I’ve spoken to privately that believes that that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground...
...American casualties initially rose, as McCain had warned they would, but then fell dramatically: Last month was the lowest-casualty month of the entire war...
...And Tehran would quickly move to fi ll any power vacuum that the Americans left behind in Iraq...
...infl uence in the Middle East...
...Both said Iran is a major strategic threat...
...Matthew Continetti, for the Editors...
...They passed almost all of the “benchmark” legislation that Obama’s bill would have required...
...And somehow the security of America and her allies will be enhanced by inadvertently promoting the interests of her enemies...
...It pursues a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race, and raise the prospect of a transfer of nuclear know-how to terrorists...
...Once violence was under control, the Iraqis began to make serious political progress, as McCain had predicted...
...Sectarian violence stopped almost completely...
...Obama had been a senator for 2 years and before that was a state legislator, lawyer, and community organizer...
...troops developed numerous economic and infrastructure projects that provided jobs...
...There is no way to know for sure, but it seems likely that, facing less resistance, Al Qaeda in Iraq would have continued to gain strength, the fragile Iraqi Security Forces would have collapsed, as would the fragile Iraqi government, militias would have fl ourished—and the United States would have departed under fi re, accepting a humiliating defeat in the war against al Qaeda that would have reverberated globally...
...From those positions, with access to classifi ed situation reports as well as the public testimony and private advice of those who knew the situation in Iraq best, each man reached an understanding of the facts on the ground and the interests at stake...
...There are major differences...
...If his non-precondition-conditions are met, what will Obama say to the “appropriate Iranian leader...
...These include a commitment to go after the militias, a reconciliation process for insurgents and Baathists, a more equitable distribution of government resources, provincial elections that will bring Sunnis into the government, and a large increase in employment-generating economic projects...
...Exhibit A: Obama’s June 4 address, quoted above, to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC...
...433), which he introduced in the Senate on January 30...
...and without national security or executive experience, is a plausible commander in chief...
...In fact, I think it will do the reverse...
...By what strategic calculus would he determine that that would be the time to give up his chips...
...He got nothing...
...This failure has been bipartisan and transatlantic...
...Both men’s proposals are a matter of public record, available on the Internet...
...This would not only be embarrassing...
...His bill quoted a skeptical Colin Powell and an even more skeptical CENTCOM commander, General John Abizaid...
...It said, The redeployment of the Armed Forces under this section shall be substantial, shall occur in a gradual manner, and shall be executed at a pace to achieve the goal of the complete redeployment of all United States combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008, consistent with the expectation of the Iraq Study Group, if all the matters set forth in subsection (b)(1)(B) are not met by such date, subject to the exceptions for retention of forces for force protection, counterterrorism operations, training of Iraqi forces, and other purposes as contemplated by subsection (g...
...It would mean more leverage for Tehran...
...And each proposed a strategy...
...He noted that, “where American soldiers have deployed to areas in turmoil, including Baghdad neighborhoods, the violence has ceased almost immediately...
...As the situation in Iraq deteriorated during 2006 and the war reached its most critical moment, both senators served on national security committees: McCain on Armed Services, Obama on Foreign Relations...
...Why on earth, then, would the supreme leader of Iran, seeing the U.S...
...They have zilch to show for it...
...McCain told AIPAC, correctly, that for decades negotiations with Iran have failed to win concessions from the regime...
...That’s a pretty big “if,” coming from the guy who has said he would meet without preconditions in the fi rst year of his administration with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea...
...McCain went on, “Once the government wields greater authority, however, Iraqi leaders must take signifi cant steps on their own...
...sanctions, divestment, and—if necessary—force...
...For any voter trying to choose between the two candidates for commander in chief, there is no better test than this: When American strategy in a critical theater was up for grabs, John McCain proposed a highly unpopular and risky path, which he accurately predicted could lead to success...
...McCain’s recommendations drew on his conversations with commanders on the ground in Iraq, where he traveled in late December 2006...
...troops out of Iraq by the spring of 2008...
...Given this analysis, Obama’s legislation forbade the surge and ordered most U.S...
...Four days later, Obama told Face the Nation, “We cannot impose a military solution on what has effectively become a civil war...
...We also know the strategy the president chose—the surge of forces he announced on January 10, very similar to what McCain described—and the outcome it has brought...
...Barack Obama proposed a popular and politically safe route that would have led to an unnecessary and debilitating American defeat at the hands of al Qaeda...
Vol. 13 • June 2008 • No. 38
