McCain: Obama’s Iraq Position “Political”
July 27th, 2008 at 02:25pm Mark Noonan
From The Hill:
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain on Sunday asserted that his Democratic rival’s positions on Iraq were politically motivated.
“Sen. Obama doesn’t understand,” the Arizona senator said regarding Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) opposition to the troop surge. “He doesn’t understand what’s at stake here, and he chose to take a political path that would have helped him get the nomination of his party.”
McCain added that, if the path that the Illinois senator advocated had been pursued, there “would have been chaos, genocide, increased Iranian influence, perhaps al Qaeda establishing a base again” in Iraq.
The GOP standard-bearer hopes that his foreign policy and military experience and support for the surge will help convince voters in November that he is the right choice to lead the country.
McCain, in an interview with ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” consistently hammered Obama on security-related issues and defended a remark he made earlier in which he said that the Democrat is willing to lose a war to win a political campaign.
The Arizona senator argued that, while he broke with President Bush and his party to demand that more troops should be sent to Iraq, Obama “made the decision [to oppose the surge], which was political, in order to help him get the nomination of his party.”
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who went on the trip to the Middle East with Obama, criticized the attacks on the Democrat and said McCain is “treading on some very thin ground here when he impugns motives and when we start to get into, ‘You’re less patriotic than me. I’m more patriotic’.”
Hagel, true to form for the anti-war people, is trying to say that any criticism of war criticism is an accusation of being unpatriotic, and thus beyond the pale. This bit of nonsense, I think, will not fly anymore - its clear that McCain does not impugn Obama’s patriotism - just his motivation and his judgement, both of which are highly questionable. For all we know Obama is deep down inside the most Yankee Doodle of all Dandies - what is at issue here is his manifestly wrong position on the troop surge and how that relates to his prospective ability to be President of the United States of America.
The anti-war point of view has been proven wrong from start to finish - it is wrong because it believes that war is just a misunderstanding which can be resolved by patient diplomacy. War, though, is usually the result of a very good understanding - especially on the part of the aggressor, who is usually convinced that his more aggressive nature is the result of inherent superiority. The so-called “peace movement” nearly added another charnel house to its record (for a more complete list of the peace movement’s victims, see my “20th Century Victims of Peace“) - but at the urging of Senator McCain, the calls for surrender by Obama and his Democrats were ignored, and victory has now been secured. And now it is Senator Obama who is seeking maximum personal advantage out of this.
First he used Iraq to wow the left, now he’s trying to use the victory in Iraq as a support for his withdrawal plan (updated, again and again as Obama needs to shift here and there on the political landscape) - he’s trying to have it both ways. Obama wants lefty support due to his anti-war rhetoric, and he wants center support for his call to move troops from Iraq to Afghanistan…he’s a peaceful warmonger, I guess.
We can’t afford four years of a President who adjusts his views to his personal, political needs - we need a President who will take an action even when assured it will be unpopular and may, indeed, cost him the White House. Senator McCain is that man; lets keep Obama in the Senate where for the next four to eight years (or ten, if you ask Obama) he can learn from President McCain what it takes to hold the most powerful office in the world.
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008, Democrats, Republicans, War on Terror
31 Comments
1. Stop US Wars » Blog&hellip | July 27th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
[...] Stop US Wars » Blog Archive » Anti-War movement successfully pushes back a… wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptHagel, true to form for the anti-war people, is trying to say that any criticism of war criticism is an accusation of being unpatriotic, and thus beyond the pale. This bit of nonsense, I think, will not fly anymore - its clear that … [...]
2. 42 | July 27th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Deleted - off topic.
3. js | July 27th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
thats a halfwit twist 31.
4. diogenes | July 27th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Deleted - off topic.
5. 42 | July 27th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Deleted - complains about comment policy.
6. neocon | July 27th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
The shamelessness of the left is astonishing in re: to Obama’s “plan”. A constantly moving 16 month withdrawal plan without regard to victory, defeat, or potential atrocities is not a plan. just FYI.
Secondly, Obama has now refined this to include a residual force, or forces that will stay behind and will only withdraw based on conditions. In other words, a condition-based withdrawal and not a complete 16 month withdrawal.
After being wrong about the surge, then trying to undermine the surge and calling for a 16 month withdrawal, Obama now supports McCain’s plan.
I wonder what his plan will be tomorrow?
neocon
7. 42 | July 27th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
“Obama has now refined this to include a residual force, or forces that will stay behind and will only withdraw based on conditions. In other words, a condition-based withdrawal and not a complete 16 month withdrawal.”
try to keep up troll, Obama talked about this over a year ago in the Iraq war de-escalation act of ‘07 (S433)
“After being wrong about the surge”
-typical trolling con talking point…it’s been beaten to death troll and discredited every time
“I wonder what his plan will be tomorrow?”
I’m guessing the same one he’ had the whole time
“We can’t afford four years of a President who adjusts his views to his personal, political needs”
Let’s see…abortion, taxes, MLK day, wives, pastors and ministers, gay rights, offshore drilling, campaign finance, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc…Yeah, your right, McCain would never adjust any of his views for his political needs….You hit it out of the park with this one Noonan
8. 42 | July 27th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
no need troll, I did put your instead of you’re in my last post…sorry about that
9. neocon | July 27th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
42,
I sense a little hostility. Are you frustrated that the flip flopping grumpy old man is gaining ground on the messiah, and that 72% say that McCain would be the better commander in chief?
I can see why.
have a nice day
neocon
10. neocon | July 27th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
“After being wrong about the surge”
-typical trolling con talking point…it’s been beaten to death troll and discredited every time - 42
Barack Obama, July 20, 2007: “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence, in fact, I think it will do the reverse.”
11. kmg | July 27th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Good thing we’ve won and there is no more sectarian violence.
BAGHDAD - Seven Shiite pilgrims traveling to a shrine in Baghdad were shot to death in an ambush in a Sunni town south of the capital Sunday as authorities tightened security ahead of a major religious festival that is expected to draw tens of thousands of worshippers.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25872299/
12. 42 | July 27th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
9. neocon | July 27th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
-troll, once again off topic
10. neocon | July 27th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
-and? were you going to make a NEW point, one that hasn’t been shot down for weeks now?
are you just incapable of sticking to the topic at hand and making any type of relevant response?
are you capable of citing anything other than con talking points?
13. Joshua Wright | July 27th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Whenever I see a deleted comment, I know the author must have really hit the nail on the head and proved his opposing viewpoint with so much clarity that it could not be allowed to see the light of day in the blog.
14. Rich | July 27th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Obama is like the fairweather sports fan we all know. Suddenly when a team makes the playoffs he was “for them all along”. Now that the surge has worked and he did not support it, he is trying to take the credit for the results of the surge, which would be the possibility of withdrawing troops and maintaining order in Iraq. Had we followed his plan, it would have been genocide on a wide scale. It would be like pulling our troops out of WWII before the battle of the Bulge. Sure our troops would come home just the same, but there would have been a very different outcome.
KMG- Nobody has said there would be no violence after the surge, the plan was to have less. Any person of sound mind (even Obama) can verify this is the case. You are simply pissing in the wind with these types of comments. I am from Chicago and we are averaging one teen shot per day this summer. Surely if we cannot stop all gang violence in Obama’s home town, we cannot be expected to stamp out all violence in Iraq.
15. neocon | July 27th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
42,
I am sensing more hostility. I guess you’re just not capable of “refining” Obama’s statement to be in support of the surge.
The left is losing on the Iraq issue more and more everyday. They rolled the dice on defeat and now it is going to bite them in the ass, at the worst possible time. Now that’s poetic justice.
16. 42 | July 27th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
15. neocon | July 27th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
are you just slow or what troll, the ’surge’ success is only evident if you only watch Fox New…paying off the Sunni resistance to reduce the violence to 2005 levels does no equal success…now since I’m sure you seen this at least 30 times in the last week or so, maybe you can get it to sink in
Just remember little con, you have no one to blame for President Obama but yourself and the rest of the ‘neocons’ who’ve completely trashed what was once a great political party
Let me know if you have anything relevant to respond with…you know, other than the same talking points you rehash which usually have already been shot down time and time and time and time and time again
good luck troll
17. kmg | July 27th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Rich,
I’m not the one who claimed that the war in Iraq has been won. So violence has dropped during the surge. Now what? We can’t keep troops in Iraq at their current levels indefinitely. We can’t add more troops to the south to counter the Iranian influence or to the north to keep Iran and/or Turkey from invading to go after the MEK. We can’t continue paying blood money to the Sunni sheiks to keep them from shooting at us. At some point we have to leave and let the Iraqis fend for themselves. I think it should have been years ago, but in any event it should start now.
Also, can you provide any evidence of Obama taking credit for the results of the surge?
18. Dennis | July 27th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
I heard both McCain and Obama today, and McCain sounds like a man in a corner. His accusations against Obama sound increasingly irrational and more like the repitition of a mantra.
Obama very patiently explained to Katie Couric (who for some reason kept not getting it) just why his initial opposition of the surge was correct: because it took resources from other fronts on the war on terror as well as equal or higher domestic priorities, all having to do with America’s long-term security. Essentially, Obama places a higher premium on America’s security than Iraq’s security.
Those responsible for beginning the mess in Iraq really don’t want to see the issue framed like that - but that’s what it comes down to. Every dollar and every troop in Iraq is one less available to deploy where greater threats lie. Afghanistan, particularly on the Pakistani border, is one such place.
Obama didn’t say this but I would observe that Iraq will never likely become a true haven for al Qaeda (too much Shiite/Iranian influence, and even the Sunni Iraqis really don’t fancy outsiders coming in to set up shop - even less the Kurds). But hotbeds of al Qaeda activity elsewhere will only become more dangerous the longer our resources are bogged down in Iraq.
Iraq is a constant and huge drain both on troops and resources. The relative quiescence there could merely be a tactic to get the occupier to leave, so they can sort out their differences later without us. It is impossible to know if the surge is truly the cause of the decrease in violence - it is more likely just one factor among many. Obama remains correct, McCain remains wrong.
19. Blackandwhite | July 27th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
McCain says Obama does not understand the surge is a success. He understands. The only thing surging is American tax dollars going to pay off Sunni. It is time to ask McCain where is the money going to come from to keep his and Bush’s surger going . Lets hear plan or does he think American taxpayers are a bottomless pit from which war profiteers can dip from.
20. Rich | July 27th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Dennis- Obama looked like a turd in that interview. He said that the surge worked, but that he was still against it. That’s why she kept asking him the same question, because it was an idiotic answer.
KMG- Obama was against the surge, and now that the country is safer because of it, Obama’s plan of withdrawing troops has become more plausible. Its like pulling cops out of a bad neighborhood. If you do it before the criminals are arrested (like Obama wanted to do in Iraq) you leave behind a mess. Sure the cops leave the neighborhood, but it has not accomplished the goal of making the neighborhood safe. Obama wanted to pull the troops out a year ago, he loses on this issue sorry.
21. kmg | July 28th, 2008 at 12:01 am
Rich,
Maybe it was just bad phrasing. When you said Obama was taking credit, it sounded like you were claiming that he said he was responsible.
I disagree that he loses on this. We can only speculate as to what might have happened without the additional troops or if the troops had been withdrawn. Violence could have gotten worse, but it could also have gotten better. The Iraqi government may have failed, but it also may have been forced to stand on its own. We’ll never know because it never happened.
22. Dennis | July 28th, 2008 at 12:36 am
Sorry Rich - but the way I see it people are so accustomed to having the issue framed only one way - with the presumption of a false dichotomy - that when the issue is reframed they find it disorienting. Clearly, Couric did.
I heard the interview on Cspan radio so didn’t have the benefit of visuals, but grasped immediately the logic of Obama’s position. Of course I am not burdened with the baggage of having to justify the war on the grounds that its supporters must.
I wish the Iraq people the best - the war’s supporters in the US owe them big-time for all the unrepaired damage and loss of life, but along with that the war inevitably has opened some new opportunities for them. In a reality-based world, it is time for them to pick up the lemons and make some lemonade. Americans simply refuse to keep paying indefinitely for the follies of the Bush admin.
23. Mark Noonan | July 28th, 2008 at 1:58 am
Dennis,
I see your supposition about what has happened in Iraq and raise you the fact that we’re on track for the lowest number of casualties in a month since the start of the liberation campaign.
The complete mental block you and the rest of the Obama supporters have on this is just flabbergasting at this point…the man wanted the last US soldier out of Iraq by March 31st, 2008. That would have been an utter catastrophe - and McCain helped to avert it.
And, also, you should know that those of us who never lost faith in our military and the Iraqi people - we don’t feel like we have to justify our view. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding…all your theories about it are worth nothing…we have the fact of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis volunteering for the security forces; we have the fact of thousands of Iraqis personnel killed fighting the common enemy; we have the fact of our troops figuring out how to win a counter-insurgency battle; we have the fact that Iraq is the freest nation in the Moslem world.
All you’ve got is your nauseating hatred and obtuseness.
24. Dennis | July 28th, 2008 at 2:28 am
Mark, the war’s architects try to justify their original presumptions by continuing to throw money they don’t own into a situation that in the end they cannot control. You support this.
Nobody knows what circumstances would prevail now had we began drawing down troops instead of surging. Not you, not Obama, not anybody. But we DO know that al Qaeda is stronger than ever in places we did not put our main assets.
Nobody here has argued against good faith in our military. What we argue against is how the Bush admin has used our military, and the lack of any real strategic plan beyond attenuating the violence they inexcusably allowed to spread across Iraq in the wake of Bush’s victory dance on the aircraft carrier.
What Obama brings to the table is a clear-eyed strategic view of a larger reality - beyond Iraq and out into the hinterlands that Bush ignored while he was having his war. It may be difficult for you to grasp, but American security involves other matters outside Iraq that cannot be adequately addressed as long as we are tied down there.
If all that adds up to nauseating hatred for you, I’d suggest therapy.
25. Mark Noonan | July 28th, 2008 at 2:52 am
Dennis,
You can’t determine if the surge worked, but you can determine that al Qaeda is stronger than it used to be? Doesn’t such a statement on your part strike you in any way as, well, rather odd?
Probably not - because all you’ve ever done here is justify by bizarre mental backflips your continual hatred of President Bush.
Other than that, I just have to stop - anything further from me would tend to be a string of insults directed at you, and I hold myself bound to refrain from that as much as possible.
26. neocon | July 28th, 2008 at 8:42 am
The level of vitriol from the lefties on this issue is a clear sign that they know they have lost, and now can only resort to BDS attacks.
42 is only capable of calling the surge success, propaganda and a scenario perpetuated by Fox News, in between his multutude of troll comments. I can only imagine the spittle dripping down his chin as he types.
It appears many Americans are not overly impressed with his “clear eyed” foreign policy as he slipped in the polls last week, most alarmingly in swing states.
27. Tractatus | July 28th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
we don’t feel like we have to justify our view
Exactly–no facts or anything of that sort are required. You just have to believe it, and that’s good enough for you.
You really are Truthiness personified, Noonan.
28. Mark Noonan | July 28th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Tract,
The winners don’t have to justify themselves - those who advocated a bug out, they are the one’s stuck trying to justify their absurdly wrong position.
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