Neatly encapsulates the total difference between himself and his opponent:
Progress between the United States and Iraq on a time horizon for American troop presence is further evidence that the surge has succeeded. Most of the U.S. forces used in the surge have already been withdrawn. When a further conditions-based withdrawal of U.S. forces is possible, it will be because we and our Iraqi partners built on the successes of the surge strategy, which Senator Obama opposed, predicted would fail, voted against and campaigned against in the primary. When we withdraw, we will withdraw with honor and victory. An honorable and victorious withdrawal would not be possible if Senator Obama’s views had prevailed. An artificial timetable based on political expediency would have led to disaster and could still turn success into defeat. If we had followed Senator Obama’s policy, Iraq would have descended into chaos, American casualties would be far higher, and the region would be destabilized.
Once again – wars don’t “end”. Wars are won, wars are lost – but wars don’t just “end”. The fact that Obama said he wanted to end the war shows his complete lack of understanding of war. He doesn’t know what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, or how its done…and yet he wants to be placed in charge of it, because he believes that it can just be ended. We’ve won in Iraq – a lot of the troops have already come home, more will probably follow in short order…but we will only draw down as we and our Iraqi allies determine it is time to bring more US troops home. The enemy is still there and may have many nasty surpises in store for us in Iraq – so we stay until we’re sure we’re done, and we only draw down when we’re certain that less US troops won’t adversely affect the overall situation. As McCain correctly points out, had we follow Obama’s advice in 2007, we would have lost the war.
Your choice, Americans – the man who figured out what needed to be done for victory, or the man who demanded we suffer defeat.
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