Iraq and change

[Anonymous]

Maybe this should be two threads, but we have so many going. So I'll think of this as the "new developments" thread.

First, the two front page articles about Iraq on the WP front page seem to contradict McCain's glowing picture of the surge. The Pentagon is halting the pullback until at least after the election, and according to Woodward's new book, the decrease in violence is mainly due to improved intelligence methods rather than the troop increase. Seems to me that both articles deflate McCain's surge-pride a bit.

Second, a thought about "change". There are two different (but rrelated) issues getting lumped together: process and policy. McCain now, and Obama earlier, were talking about process -- cutting through the party-line thinking so prevalent here. Now, Obama is emphasizing policy, with the "eight is enough" mantra. It makes sense for Obama to switch. He did not differ from Clinton much on policy, so he had to talk about process. With McCain, it's impossible for him to tout post-partisanship, and the policy differences are glaring. So I don't object to the switch, but I wish he's be more honest about the changing definition. I suppose he could say that he was always for both kinds of change, while his opponents only favored one each.

[jsteele]

You make a good point about the war. As I recall McCain and his support of the surge, it went a bit like this: McCain was a gung ho war supporter, but as things went south and he started his run for the presidency, he needed to distance himself from what was going on. He couldn't very well start campaigning against the war since that wouldn't fly with the Republicans, so he came up with the idea to support sending "more" troops. At the time, nobody really believed that we could send more troops, so McCain's position looked like a typical political dodge. He could say he supported the war, but opposed the president's handling of it, and was not responsible for any problems because his advice had not been followed.

Then, when Frederick Kagan and Jack Keane started advocating for a "surge", McCain appeared to be in trouble. What if it turned out we didn't have enough troops for a surge? What if we tried a surge and it didn't work? That put McCain on the spot. However, because Muqtada al-Sadr called a truce and because the Anbar tribes rose up against al-Qaida in Iraq (not to be confused with the real al-Qaida), and some additional troops were found, it turned out we could actually do a surge.

Its always been true that the Anbar Awakening and the Jaish al-Mahdi truce were the critical factors of the surge. Without those developments, we wouldn't have had enough troops to quiet Baghdad. Furthermore, but the time our troops arrived, ethnic cleansing had pretty much eliminated the need for much fighting there anyway. So, the situation is quiet and McCain is able to take credit for it -- probably to his surprise more than anyone's.

The Post article today did add new information about intelligence activities. I obviously didn't know anything about those before so I don't know their relative importance.

I'm sorry, but I didn't quite get your second point.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:I'm sorry, but I didn't quite get your second point.

Sorry I was not clear.

Watching McCain extolling his work-across-the-aisle history, I thought to myself that Obama's portrait of himself as an agent of change, compared to Hillary and the other Dems, was based on the same idea. So it's strange that Obama is still using it against McCain. But then I realized that he is now speaking of change in the sense of reversing GWB's policies; that sort of change would not have distinguished him in the primaries, but it does draw a line with McCain.

So, did Obama choose a different meaning for "change", or did he expand the meaning?

I hope I'm making sense now.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
So, did Obama choose a different meaning for "change", or did he expand the meaning?

I hope I'm making sense now.

Now I understand. I think you are really asking about two issues: change; and bipartisanship. Obama has worked across the isle in the Senate, most notably on an anti-proliferation bill he co-authored with Senator Luger. Bipartisanship has always been part of his message. Of course, bipartisanship is part of McCain's persona. Obama probably de-emphasized bipartisanship during the primary. During his convention speech, Obama made several appeals to bipartisanship, but he also promised lots of change from Bush policies. So, I'm not sure he has "changed" exactly, but maybe just switched emphasis.

McCain is putting forth a very partisan platform. While he talks about change, the policies he supports are not changed from Bush's. So, the only thing left for him is to talk about bipartisanship. However, he is delusional if he believes the Dems will work with him to enact Bush's policies. Michael Gerson, a former Bush speechwriter, was pretty clear about this, "The policy in the speech was rather typical for a Republican. Pretty disappointing. It didn't do a lot of outreach to moderates and independents on issues that they care about."