The Iraq Domestic Political Conundrum

In the past week, Barack Obama and John McCain traded jabs over Iraq with each other. McCain started the attacks with this statement in response to a supposition by Obama that after withdrawing troops he would reserve the right to draw them back in if Al Qaeda formed a base there. ..

if al-Qaida is forming a base in Iraq.""I have some news. Al-Qaida is in Iraq. It's called `al-Qaida in Iraq,

Barack Obama responded like this...

But I have some news for John McCain...There was no such thing as al-Qaida in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq. ... They took their eye off the people who were responsible for 9/11 and that would be al-Qaida in Afghanistan, that is stronger now than at any time since 2001."

The battle lines on Iraq have been drawn. McCain will look to paint Obama's position is weak and naive, and Obama will counter that McCain is continuing the same failed policy of the last seven years.

Now, I believe that in order for McCain to win he needs to take the issue of Iraq right to Barack Obama. The problem for McCain is that he is defending a policy that is generally disliked by Americans. It is unlikely that in its sixth year that Iraq will ever be popular among Americans. Furthermore, the muddled message of the President means that most Americans don't understand the stakes of defeat there. Most Americans are tired of the war and they want the troops home.

What McCain has going for him first and foremost is his own credibility. He has been about as right as just about anyone on this war. He was one of the first pols to criticize the Rumsfeld strategy, and he was one of the first to get out front in defending the surge strategy. The surge has by nearly every measure been a success. Violence of all levels has decreased dramatically since it was implemented just over a year ago.

It is up to McCain to convince Americans that this is no accident and that this has everything to do with the new strategy. He must convince them that the strategy is more than merely an increase in numbers. He must separate himself from the initial Bush strategy. Furthermore, he must convince Americans that altering the strategy now would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Finally, and most importantly, he must convince Americans the stakes not only of victory in Iraq but defeat. This is no easy task. Americans are tired of the war and the muddled message of the Bush administration has created a sense that victory in Iraq is not vital to our own interests. In other words, the public is generally with Obama now.

As for Obama, he is on the right side of the polls however, I firmly believe on the wrong side of policy. He must essentially play good salesman and tell the electorate what they want to hear. They want the war ended and the troops brought back home. He has been against the Iraq war from the start and we will likely hear him try and tie McCain to the failed war. We will likely hear rhetoric about putting more focus in Afghanistan which is a war that the public hasn't soured on.

Obama's problem is that he is horribly wrong on policy. Now, being wrong on policy is not necessarily a problem, but it can be exposed. Let's take his latest statement. Our own intelligence believes that Abu Musab Al Zarqawi,the man that created AQI, wound up in Iraq before we invaded.

The policy errors are of course more egregious than that. What Obama would like to do is radically alter a strategy that by every measure has been working successfully. This is not something the generals on the ground want or anyone else in the military chain of command. If he were to set timetables, it would likely be over the advice of all the military folks on the ground.

In other words, even though all violence is down, the economy is recovering, and the Iraqi central government is finally reaching agreements on key benchmarks, Obama would swoop in and radically alter the strategy. Furthermore, Obama doesn't account for the hornet's nest that our military's quick departure would leave. He doesn't account for what losing in Iraq would to our standing in the world and in the GWOT. Now, none of this may matter unless McCain convinces Americans of the war's worth, however Obama is treading on thin ice by advocating defeat when our side is finally winning.

There is the domestic political conundrum. McCain has to hitch his wagon to an unpopular war and make people believe in it again. Obama must convince folks that he is right when he is really wrong. Thus, Iraq offers a conundrum to each.