Obama's Afghan Turnaround?

Former General Stanley McChrystal put President Obama into a near impossible position and President Obama may have turned that into a deciding turning point in the Afghan war.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday replaced Gen. Stanley McChrystal as commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan and nominated Gen. David Petraeus to replace him while affirming support for a counterinsurgency strategy encountering problems.

The dramatic shift came a day after McChrystal's disparaging comments about America's civilian leadership surfaced, and reignited the national debate on the war in Afghanistan -- now in its eighth year with a June death toll of coalition forces that is close to becoming the highest of the war.

Obama accepted McChrystal's resignation "with considerable regret" and named Petraeus, the head of the U.S. Central Command, to take over pending Senate confirmation.

Folks like Joe Liberman and John McCain are fond of saying...

General Petreaus literally wrote the book on counterinsurgency

That's because that is true both figuratively and literally. With the successful campaign in Iraq, Petraeus showed the world how to run a counterinsurgency manual. Meanwhile, his actual counterinsurgency manual was published in 2006, shortly before he went to Iraq. Petraeus is taking over with the Afghan theater in disarray but then again, nothing liked more dire than Iraq circa the beginning of 2007. Petraeus has an opportunity to make a case in every history book as America's greatest military person.

Afghanistan has three x factors: the rules of engagement, the timeline for withdrawal, and most importantly, Karzai. Immediately, we'll see if Petraeus will make the rules of engagement. The confirmation hearing should also be a pre qual to his battle over a timeline. Karzai remains the biggest concern. In Iraq, however, no one thought that Nuri Al Maliki could be a great leader right up until he was. Will Karzai go the way of Maliki or the South Vietnamese?

President Obama Needs a Reality Check in Afghanistan

There's a leak from the White House. It appears that President Obama is unhappy with any of the war plans so far produced.

After months of deliberating, President Obama opted not to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

That stance comes in the midst of forceful reservations about a possible troop buildup from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, according to a second top administration official

The president is looking for ways to improve the political situation before committing to a troop increase. Now, try and put this into perspective. The president has scant military and foreign policy experience and he's looked all the military options on the table suggested to him by generals and other military experts and decided he doesn't like any of them.

Here's the problem for the president. No matter what path he chooses it will be a path filled with pitfalls. The president is looking for a plan that simply doesn't exist. Even in the best of circumstances, war plans are filled with pitfalls. We are under much less than ideal circumstances in Afghanistan. The president is looking for ideal where there is chaos.

The president also wants to look at ways to improve the political situation. All third world countries have terribly corrupt governments. That's the main reason that they are third world. This government will be terribly corrupt for years, decades, and maybe even centuries. That's what happens in the third world. That's one of the reasons that strong men flourish in third worlds. The people get sick of the corruption and that vacuum gives a strong man the opportunity to take over.

Plans must take all this into account. They must also account for reality. The idea that Hamid Karzai will suddenly root out corruption is naive and unrealistic. If we provide a plan that tamps down the violence, there will be a decrease in the corruption. It will give Karzai an opportunity to exert more control. President Obama is expecting miracles when he needs to expect reality. The Iraqi government was similarly hapless and corrupt, and then we cut the violence exponentially and what followed was a significantly more effective government.

Let's make no mistake. No one will mistake Nuri Al Maliki for Thomas Jefferson any time soon. There's still plenty of problems in the Iraqi government, society, and overall. Still, once the violence was tamped down, everything else followed. The same thing can happen in Afghanistan. President Obama must begin to realize that forty year military folks know more about military strategy than he does. He must start being realistic and make decisions based on what is happening not what he'd like to happen.

White House Delays Troop Decision in Afghanistan

The White House is now signaling that no troop decision will be made until after the Afghanistan election is resolved.

It would be irresponsible to send more troops to Afghanistan until a legitimate and credible government is in place, the White House and top Democrats said Sunday.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said the most critical issue facing U.S. strategy is whether the Afghans can be an effective partner in destroying Al Qaeda safe havens and bringing stability to the region.

"It would be reckless to make a decision on U.S. troop levels if in fact you haven't done a thorough analysis of whether in fact there's an Afghan partner ready to fill that space that U.S. troops would create and become a true partner in governing," Emanuel said in an interview Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

In Iraq, there was never an election widely viewed as fraudulent the way this one was, however that government didn't get legitimacy until after the security situation was resolved. At the end of 2006, the government of Nouri Al Maliki was anything but legitimate. That's because they couldn't protect the citizenry. The Bush administration was, thus, dealing with a similar problem. Had President Bush said that until there was a legitimate government we wouldn't commit to more troops, Al Qaeda would now share Iraq with Iran.

The rub, if you will, is that the government won't be legitimate until there is security. Afghanistan has voted three times in its history and so widespread fraud shouldn't have been all that surprising. If the Karzai government was able to protect the citizens, widespread corruption in the election wouldn't become a problem we'd have to deal with.

This idea of a legitimate government has been used by the current administration as a red herring so that they can delay the decision to send troops. The most significant issue in Afghanistan is security. Security isn't going to happen with the current number of troops. The general is asking for more troops and Obama simply refuses to give him his troops. If you're looking to not make a decision, then Afghanistan will provide you with a plethora of reasons not to do exactly that.

The election certainly complicates the matter. No one should minimize just how explosive that is in an already explosive situation. That said, to wait until that is resolved is to simply vote present on making a decision. Unfortunately, by voting present, all the president really does is keep the status quo for another month or two. Of course, we know the status quo won't work. So, the troops are stuck in a failing strategy with a president looking for any excuse not to make a decision. That the president voted present over 100 times in the Illinois Senate was a point opponents made on occasion. Supporters dismissed this lack of decision making. Yet, it's becoming clear that on all major decisions the President continues to vote present. As an Illinois Senator, he had that option without causing too many problems. As president, it's deadly, and that's playing out in Afghanistan.

Some Context on the Passage of the Security Pact by the Iraqi Parliament

Rarely has there been a more shrewd politician than Nuri Al Maliki. In the summer of 2007 folks like Hillary Clinton used Nuri Al Maliki as a blunt against President Bush. Many a Democratic politician, Clinton included, were calling for his removal. In the last year and a half though, Maliki has grown and he has become one of the shrewdest and most effective politicians in the world. In the summer he shocked the entire political world when he endorsed Obama's timeline for withdrawal. Obama's plan would have troops out of Iraq by May of 2010. Then, only weeks ago, there were reports that the Cabinet had approved a plan to keep troops in Iraq for another three years.

Immediately, Maliki faced the same sort of internal pressures. Muqtada Al Sadr immediately organized a very visible protest of tens of thousands in the middle of Baghdad against this agreement.

More than 10,000 supporters of the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr gathered in Baghdad's Firdos Square on Friday to protest the Iraqi government plan to sign a security agreement with the United States.

With powerful symbolism, demonstrators hanged a black-hooded effigy of President George W. Bush from the column that once supported the statue of Saddam Hussein that was toppled by U.S. troops in April 2003.

Removing the hood to beat the effigy with a shoe, they put a whip in its right hand and in its left a briefcase, on which were written the words, "the security agreement is shame and dishonor."

The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki this week signed the pact, which would place new limits on the powers of U.S. troops in Iraq but provides for them to stay in the country up to the end of 2011, if the Iraqis so desire. The agreement still needs to be approved by Parliament and the country's three-man Presidency Council.

The internal dynamics of Iraqi politics is significantly more complicated and sophisticated than even here in the U.S. Iraq has several groups and dozens more sub groups and all of them have their own agenda. None of them want American troops in country any longer. Yet, a precipitous withdrawal would very likely reverse the gains we have seen in Iraq over the last year and a half. Maliki was facing a military reality that came up against a totally different polling reality. As such, he withstood the visible protests of Sadr and worked behind the scenes and today the Iraqi parliament approved the security pact.

The Iraqi Parliament on Thursday ratified a long-delayed security agreement that lays down a three-year timetable for the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.

The pact was approved by a large majority, with more than 140 of the 198 lawmakers present in the assembly voting in favor. The vote marks a watershed moment in the era of the post-war American occupation, and the onset of a relationship in which Iraq has more sovereignty over U.S. and other foreign troops on its soil.

The new agreement comes into force when the United Nations mandate that currently governs the American troops expires on Dec 31. The new pact says all American combat forces should withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30 next year and all American troops should be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.

The news of the security pact being approved comes only days after news that President Elect Obama will keep on Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

It may have been the economic crisis that delivered the election to BarackObama but his consistent opposition to the war in Iraq was also a key plank in his campaign – first to be the Democratic nominee, and then for president.

So it might therefore be surprising that he has retained the services of a Bush appointee, Robert Gates, as defence secretary. What's more, Gates has publicly disagreed with Obama's commitment to a 16-month timetable for withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq.

These two events taken together mean that it's almost certain that Obama's campaign promise for a precipitous withdrawal is dead on arrival. Gates has publicly opposed Obama's timetable, and he's one of the architects of the surge. To demand a precipitous 16 month withdrawal now would be to not only go against his own Secretary of Defense but the security agreement just reached. Obama is likely to focus on the economy in the first year regardless. I simply can't imagine Gates would have stayed on unless he was assured that the strategy would not change while he was still in office.

Nuri Al Maliki has just orchestrated one of the shrewdest political power plays I have ever witnessed. He backed Obama's plan during the election handing him a major electoral coup, and then turned around undercut that very plan by agreeing to a timeline much longer than any Obama wanted. Now, Obama is stuck. To go against Maliki and Gates would put him in a terribly vulnerable position. If he does this and it blows up, it will literally spell the end of his Presidency entirely. The American people and the world are the big winners because this new security pact allows for the job to finish and victory to be secured. The second biggest winner is the legacy of George W. Bush which will now be significantly enhanced by the successful liberation of 20 million Iraqis and the successful transformation of not one but two tyrannies into Democracies.

Maliki's Jujitsu

If we did a ranking of the shrewdest politicians in the world, I believe that Nouri Al Maliki would now be very near the top of that list. In the summertime, he faced a U.S. election in which one side couldn't be more hawkish on winning the war in his country and the other side couldn't be more dovish. Then, he stunned the world political world last summer when he backed the proposal of the dovish candidate.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki supports U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama's plan to withdraw US troops from Iraq within 16 months. When asked in an interview with SPIEGEL when he thinks U.S. troops should leave Iraq, Maliki responded "as soon as possible, as far as we are concerned." He then continued: "U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama is right when he talks about 16 months."

By doing so, he neutralized the attacks of the hawkish candidate, John McCain, that the dovish candidate, Barack Obama, had a policy that was naive. After all, his policy was now in line with the policy of the Prime Minister of Iraq's. By muddying the foreign policy waters as he did, he no doubt helped remove some doubts as to then Senator Obama's fitness as Commander in Chief.

In fact, here is what Prime Minister Maliki said in the aftermath of the U.S. elections.

A senior Western diplomat in Baghdad said that Mr Maliki told close aides he would hold the new president to an obligation to oversee a rapid withdrawal of US troops, a key Iraqi government demand in recent talks.

"Maliki has said he took the Iraq issue 'off the table' for Obama by endorsing his timetable during his visit to Baghdad in July," the diplomat told The Daily Telegraph.

"Maliki firmly hoped for an Obama victory and has used expectations of such to drive a very hard bargain with the US over its presence in Iraq.

"The prime minister has extracted an unbelievable number of concessions from the Bush administration and thinks Obama will be even more generous in implementing the deal."

Maliki faces a far more complicated political structure back home in Iraq than anything any U.S. President faces here. He has dozens of competing factions each with their own agenda. Furthermore, the occupation by the Americans has become a sore spot internally. The success of the surge has ironically made people favor the rapid withdrawal of troops. Maliki can't afford to look as though he is merely a lackey of the U.S. or he will face stiff opposition from anyone that is willing to run on the platform that they will force a rapid withdrawal of the U.S. forces.

Then, just in the last couple days, we found this stunning news.

Iraq’s Cabinet on Sunday approved a security pact that sets a timetable for the nearly complete withdrawal of U.S. forces within three years.

The deal still needs parliamentary approval, and lawmakers could vote as soon as next Monday.The largest Sunni party in Iraq, the Iraqi Islamic Party, wants the agreement to go to a nationwide referendum. Its affiliated parties complain that their efforts to amend the plan to require the release of detainees and to provide compensation for war victims were ignored by lawmakers who shaped the pact.

Followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, meanwhile, view the agreement as an affirmation of the American occupation and oppose it outright.

This pact still needs to pass the parliament, and it has plenty of detractors, Muqtada Al Sadr being the most prominent. That said, Nouri Al Maliki has performed a brilliant bit of political jujitsu. He saw this summer that Barack Obama was the clear front runner. Rather than confronting him on the timeline, he actually backed him. This did two things. First, it gave him immense leverage with the new President. Second, it calmed fears that he was merely a lackey of the U.S. Now, he has quietly negotiated a pact that will keep the U.S. forces in his country until 2011. Now, despite agreeing outwardly with Obama, he has negotiated a pact that keeps his troops in country a lot longer than anything that Obama imagined in the campaign. If President Obama withdraws U.S. troops on his timeline it would be done on his own and outside the guidelines of the pact just negotiated.

By doing all of this, it appears he is trying, and largely succeeding, in threading an awfully sharp needle. He ingratiated himself with a President that had no use for U.S. troops in Iraq. He appeased all those forces that saw him as nothing more than a lackey of the U.S. Finally, he kept the security structure done in such a manner that will maintain the security gains that have been accomplished in the last year and a half. Despite the bluster, any rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops would jeopardize all these gains. Since the new security agreement calls for U.S. troops to stay in country until 2011, President Obama would be taking a massive political risk in trying to withdraw them more quickly. If things deteriorated, he would take all the blame, fair or not. This security agreement gives President Obama all the cover he needs to keep troops for three years. Three years should be enough for Iraqi security forces to be ready on their own. PM Maliki has learned the art of political jujitsu masterfully

Assessing the Political Implications of Barack Obama's World Tour

With his world tour wrapping up, it is time to assess the political implications of the tour. I see four specific issues that will have lasting impact on the campaign. In my opinion, whether or not this trip was a success depends largely on how each of the candidates use the trip. So, far the polling has been indefinite and thus there is not yet a clear sign whether not this trip has benefitted Obama. Let's look at the four major events.

1) Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki's call for timetables changed the dynamic of the trip entirely. Rather than being on the defensive, Obama immediately went on offense during the part of the trip that was thought to be his most difficult. At worst, for Barack Obama, Maliki's statement is confusing and muddies the waters. At best, it will be seen as supporting Obama's position. Maliki's statement can now be used by Obama's supporters to legitimize his own call for timetables. Dick Morris said it best...

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has cut the legs out from under John McCain by basically endorsing Sen. Barack Obama’s troop-withdrawal plan.

Just when McCain had Obama on the defensive over the Democrat’s plan to surrender after we’ve won in Iraq, Maliki has made McCain look the naïf for opposing a timetable for withdrawal.

Maliki's statement has changed the entire dynamic of the debate on Iraq and unless McCain pivots, he loses the issue, as Morris explains further.

Unless McCain changes his approach, he’s lost the use of this issue. He can’t come out for staying in Iraq longer than the government we support wants.

The Republican needs to shift the debate to Iraq’s future. Neither Obama’s belaboring of his previous opposition to the war nor McCain’s attacking the Democrat’s opposition to the surge is relevant - both lines are history lessons best left in the classroom. What voters want to know is: What now?

So, we will see what the long term effects are but the short term effect was a huge political victory for Obama.

2) Obama would still not vote for the surge? Just as quickly as he received a political victory, Obama handed McCain a huge issue with his awful answer to both Terry Moran and Katie Couric about whether or not he would support the surge.





This could wind up being a huge political boon for McCain. I can just see the ads coming and frankly they could mirror the opening of Couric's piece with Obama's statements about still not voting for the surge being transcribed afterwards. Obama went onto admit and acknowledge that his withdrawal plan diverges entirely from General Petreaus' plans for Iraq. It speaks for itself when a one term Senator with scant foreign policy experience insists on totally contradicting a proven General. This could turn out to be a huge boon for McCain if he uses it properly.

3) Obama looked comfortable and welcome everywhere. Take that to mean what you want but he certainly didn't have a Dukakis moment in the tank. Obama did indeed look Presidential. He gained foreign policy credibility with his demeanor everywhere. Just how much is of course anyone's guess.

4) His speech yesterday in Berlin. The political effects of the speech are difficult to determine and only time will tell how it will play. First, it will be nearly impossible for Obama to portray this as anything but a campaign rally. He had two hundred thousand adoring fans hanging on every word and cheering loudly. That may backfire badly on Obama. It is simply in horribly political taste to go out of country and campaign. That's essentially what he did with this speech. Furthermore, I don't know how well it will be received by Americans that Germans love Obama. In my opinion, it won't be received very well. Finally, the line that will linger is this one...

I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen - a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.

Now, John McCain recently had a campaign ad that ended with him saying "country first". McCain's biggest strength and Obama's biggest weakness is their patriotism gap. Here again Obama reinforces anyone's concern over his own patriotism. He isn't merely a citizen of the United States but the world. Of course, the President of the United States represents the United States not the world. Americans are not going to be comfortable with a President that takes a world view. The President is supposed represent the best interests of the United States at all times. That is NOT something that you worry about with McCain. Yet, Obama just gave people another reason to worry about it.

All in all, it was a mixed bag. Each side has opportunities to use parts of it to their advantage and only time will tell which will use them more effectively.

The Irony of Nuri Al Maliki

There is a perverted and fascinating sense of irony surrounding the political bedfellows between the Democratic Party and Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki. Ever since Maliki spoke with Der Spiegel and indicated that he concurred with Barack Obama's timeline on withdrawal, the Democrats have given Prime Minister Maliki deference you never saw before. Here is how Susan Rice of Obama's campaign responded.

Nevertheless, Susan Rice, a senior adviser to the Obama campaign, said Obama "welcomes Prime Minister Maliki's support for a 16 month timeline" and called Maliki's comments "an important opportunity to transition to Iraqi responsibility, while restoring our military and increasing our commitment to finish the fight in Afghanistan."

Alan Colmes began invoking Maliki everytime he looked to support Obama's timelines. Andrew Sullivan followed suit. Liberal magazine Salon also got into the act. Last night on Hannity and Colmes and Obama supporter, Adam Smith (D Washington) used that opportunity to again tout Maliki's support for timetables for withdrawal.

How ironic that Maliki has become a liberal Democratic idol for all future military planning in Iraq. Why it was just this time last year that they used Maliki as a symbol of Bush's failure in Iraq. Here is what Carl Levin said last summer.

"I hope the parliament will vote the Maliki government out of office and will have the wisdom to replace it with a less sectarian and more unifying prime minister and government". A couple days later Hillary Clinton said much the same thing, ""During his trip to Iraq last week, Senator Levin ... confirmed that theIraqi government is nonfunctional and cannot produce a political settlement because it is too beholden to religious and sectarian leaders, I share Senator Levin's hope that the Iraqi Parliament will replace Prime Minister Maliki with a less divisive and more unifying figure when it returns in a few weeks."

At about the same time, here is what Hillary Clinton said about Maliki.

called for Prime Minister Maliki to be removed in August while the President stood by him despite his mounting incompetence

So, it appears the same person many leading Democrats referred to as "incompetent" and wanted removed just last summer is now the point person for military planning in Iraq. This is the height of political cynicism. When the Democrats saw an opportunity to bash Maliki for political purposes they went ahead and bashed him. When they saw an opportunity to highlight his agreement they went ahead and did that as well. I assume they feel as though no one will notice or care.

Of course, the only reason the very same party that used Maliki as a whipping boy not but a year ago is now using him as the standard bearer is due to the ironic reality that the very surge that they furiously objected to worked so well that their ludicrous dual position appears reasonable.

The greatest irony of all comes from this column by Jonah Goldberg.

Yes, McCain heroically pushed for the surge when the war was at its most unpopular point. Even more impressive, he favored a change in strategy back when the war was popular.Within months of the invasion, McCain was calling for more troops and the head of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Later, when the Iraqi civil war erupted, al Qaeda in Iraq metastasized and Iran mounted a clandestine surge of its own, McCain doubled down; he argued that we couldn’t afford to lose and proposed a revised counterinsurgency strategy for victory.

That was the same month that Obama introduced the “Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007.” That’s great stuff for McCain’s biographers. But the catch-22 is that the more the surge succeeds, the more advantageous it is for Obama. Voters don’t care about the surge; they care about the war. Americans want it to be over — and in a way they can be proud of.

...

The surge has done likewise with the war. If it were going worse, McCain’s Churchillian rhetoric would match reality better. But with sectarian violence nearly gone, al Qaeda in Iraq almost totally routed and even Sadrist militias seemingly neutralized, the stakes of withdrawal seem low enough for Americans to feel comfortable voting for Obama. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s support for an American troop drawdown pushes the perceived stakes even lower.

Recall that Bill Clinton, with his dovish record and roster of “character issues,” would never have been elected if the Soviet Union hadn’t collapsed in 1991. With the Cold War over, the successful Reagan surge (and Bush pere’s cleanup efforts) made rolling the dice on Clinton tolerable. The McCain surge (and Bush fils’ success at averting another 9/11) produces the same effect for Obama.

So, let's see if everyone is following the irony. The very same person that many Democrats wanted removed from power is now being referenced by those same Democrats in order to build their own case for future military operations in Iraq. The reason they can all do this is the very same surge they all rejected furiously worked so well that it even gave them political advantage.

The MSM Muddies the Water on Timelines

Today's political coverage is full of word that Barack Obama and Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki have come to an agreement over timelines for withdrawal. For instance, we have this.

It may not sway many voters, but on Friday, as Barack Obama embarked on an extended trip abroad intended in large part to relieve concerns about his commander in chief bona fides, the terms of debate on Iraq began a dramatic shift that appears to favor his candidacy.

President Bush, who’d been opposed to any timetable for removing American forces from Iraq, reached an agreement with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to set a
“general time horizon” for a withdrawal.

“It’s a devastating blow to the McCain campaign — not just that Maliki moved to Obama’s position but that Bush did as well,” said Richard Holbrooke, a former United States ambassador to the United Nations for the Clinton administration.

...and this

Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama and the Iraqi government found agreement in Baghdad on Monday for a 2010 withdrawal of U.S. combat forces, a timeline that continues to face criticism from Republican Sen. John McCain.

As Obama laid eyes on the Iraq war for the first time in more than two years, he emerged from a meeting with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, calling it “very constructive.”

The trip follows Republican attempts to diminish Obama’s foreign policy experience and a challenge from McCain, who complained that Obama was wrong to plan for troop withdrawal without having visited since January 2006. McCain has visited Iraq eight times since the war began. The Arizona senator has said Obama’s foreign policy plans are naive and that he is untested.

The MSM can do this because the difference between what Maliki and Obama want is an important but small shade of gray. It is a shade that most of the media have no intentions of putting into context. While Maliki agreed to the 16 month timeline, he agreed to it only as long as the situation permits it. Here is the question and the response.

SPIEGEL: Would you hazard a prediction as to when most of the US troops will finally leave Iraq?

Maliki: As soon as possible, as far as we’re concerned. US presidential candidate Barack Obama is right when he talks about 16 months. Assuming that positive developments continue, this is about the same time period that corresponds to our wishes.

The small, but vital, difference is that Maliki wants to win, and Obama simply wants to leave. Maliki's timeline is based on the assumption that things will continue to improve as they have. In other words, Maliki's sixteen month horizon is a goal. For Obama, this is a hard and fast rule.

Yet, the media is treating this as though McCain is the odd man out. He isn't. What Bush and Maliki agreed upon is a time horizon that is based on conditions. Obama's timeline is set in stone. If, in fact, Obama's timeline is not set in stone, then his position is no different from McCain's.

Furthermore, the waters were muddied even more because the New York Times published an editorial by Barack Obama but refused to publish John McCain's response. Had they published McCain's response, here is what their readers would have found out about this so called timeline.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military’s readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops

Focusing on timelines is silly and inconsequential. All military plans are only good until they are actually started. No one knows if we will be able to leave in 16 months, 20 months, or 20 years until the military operation is executed. Anyone that purports to know is the military equivalent of a snake oil salesman. That's why John McCain refuses to be tied down to a timeline. Timelines are only good until they are implemented.

What the media continues to refuse to focus on is what McCain said later in his op ed.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

It is here where Barack Obama stands in far cry from everyone else deeply involved with Iraq: Prime Minister Maliki, George Bush, General David Petraeus, and John McCain. Everyone else is looking for victory. Barack Obama is looking to simply end the war. While the media is fixated with Obama's agreement with Maliki on timelines, they are totally oblivious to the fantasy that Obama peddles. Unlike Obama's rhetoric, wars are NOT ended. They are either won or lost. If he continues to insist on merely ending this one, he is in effect trying to lose it. Rather than focusing on meaningless timelines that never materialize once they are put into place on the battlefield, the media ought to ask Barack Obama whether or not he plans on winning the war.

Withdrawal Timelines: Maliki Vs. Obama

Much has been made of the Iraqi government's "insistence" on timelines for withdrawal. Of course, this current narrative is yet another example of what happens when our press is corrupt and incompetent. In such a case, it is vital that the press provide the proper context. The press of course has no interest in providing proper context to the story. In geopolitics and war, there are timelines and there are timelines. In the world of political spin, timelines are whatever the spinmeisters make them.



Prime Minister Maliki recently did an interview with a German magazine, Der Spiegel. (H/T Hot Air)In that interview, Maliki seemed to indicate that he agreed with Obama's 16 month time line. Maliki has since tried to correct the matter. Essentially, Maliki sees 16 months as an ambitious goal that he would like to meet for troop withdrawal. Yet, Maliki, like McCain and Bush, sees troop withdrawal as a function of conditions in Iraq.

The question is how does Barack Obama see troop withdrawal. Obama has been rather unclear on this point. On the third of July, he initially indicated that troop withdrawal may in fact be a function of conditions in Iraq. Once the media played this up as a flip flop he immediately tried to correct himself and insisted that 16 months was a hard and fast rule. Furthermore, in his New York Times editorial, Barack Obama once again reiterated his commitment to a sixteen month timeline for withdrawal.

Ultimately, the question is not how long any party wants troops in Iraq. I am certain that PM Maliki would like the coalition troops to leave Iraq yesterday. I think that General Petraeus would concur and certainly the troops would like nothing better than to leave and go home. The difference is that each want to leave because the situation on the ground is stabilized enough for them to leave.

As for Barack Obama, he appears to intend to leave in sixteen months no matter what. That brings me to his overall point. He wants to end the war not win it. Back in the Summer of 2006, many of the embedded reporters with the Israeli soldiers indicated that military sources on the ground were telling them that the Israelis felt that they were weeks if not days away from finally putting away Hezbollah. We'll never know if that was a realistic prediction or wishful thinking. That's because Israel chose to end rather than win the war. At this moment, Barack Obama seems to be making the same plan. Rather than making decisions based on performance, he intends to make them based on the calendar. That's exact what the Israelis did in 2006 and suffered a humiliating result as a result.

That, in fact, is the difference in timelines between Maliki and Obama. One sees the timeline as a goal, and that goal is still ultimately a function of performance. The other sees the timeline is a function of the calendar. We all should have learned our lesson from the Israel/Hezbollah war of 2006 of what happens when wars are ended rather than won, and yet, Barack Obama continues to insist on making the same mistake again.