McCain - "Planning To Ignore The Facts"

"It's gotten harder as the success of the surge has become undeniable, but - despite some wobbles - Obama is sticking to his plan for a 16-month timeline for withdrawal from Iraq. He musters dishonesty, evasion and straw-grasping to try to create a patina of respectability around a scandalously unserious position." -- Rich Lowry

"Planning To Ignore The Facts"
Rich Lowry
New York Post
July 15, 2008

At some point, Democrats decided that facts didn't matter anymore in Iraq. And they nominated just the man to reflect the party's new anti-factual consensus on the war, a Barack Obama who has fixedly ignored changing conditions on the ground.

It's gotten harder as the success of the surge has become undeniable, but - despite some wobbles - Obama is sticking to his plan for a 16-month timeline for withdrawal from Iraq. He musters dishonesty, evasion and straw-grasping to try to create a patina of respectability around a scandalously unserious position.

Obama spokesmen now say everyone knew that President Bush's troop surge would create more security. This is blatantly false: Obama said in early 2007 that nothing in the surge plan would "make a significant dent in the sectarian violence," and the new strategy would "not prove to be one that changes the dynamics significantly." He referred to the surge derisively as "baby-sit[ting] a civil war."

Now that the civil war has all but ended, he wants to claim retroactive clairvoyance. In a New York Times op-ed, he credits our troops' heroism and new tactics with bringing down the violence. Yet our troops have always been heroic; what made the difference was the surge strategy that he lacked the military judgment - or political courage - to support.

Obama states that "the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true," citing the strain on the military, the deterioration in Afghanistan and the fiscal drain. All are important, but pale compared with the achievement in Iraq - beating back al Qaeda and Iranian-backed militias and restoring a semblance of order to a country on the verge of a collapse from which only our enemies could've benefited.

Politically, Obama has to notionally support defeating al Qaeda in Iraq, so even after he's executed his 16-month withdrawal, he says there'll be a "residual force" of American troops to take on "remnants of al Qaeda." How can he be so sure there'll only be "remnants"? If there are, it'll be because the surge he opposed has pushed al Qaeda to the brink. The more precipitously we withdraw our troops, the more likely it is to mount a comeback.

Obama treats as a vindication a recent statement by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki calling for a timeline for withdrawal of US forces. But neither Maliki nor anyone around him talks of an unconditional 16-month timeline for withdrawal as being plausible. His defense minister says Iraqis will be ready to handle internal security on their own in 2012 and external security by 2020.

The Iraqis most enthusiastic about Obama's plan surely are al Qaeda members, Sadrists, Iranian agents and sectarian killers of every stripe. The prospect of a US president suddenly letting up on them has to be the best cause for hope they've had in months. His withdrawal would immediately embolden every malign actor in Iraq and increase their sway in Iraqi politics.

Obama sticks to the badly dated contention that Iraqis "have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge." In fact, roughly 15 of 18 political benchmarks have been met by the Iraqis - progress Obama threatens to reverse.

Obama loves to say that we have to withdraw from Iraq "responsibly." There's nothing responsible about his plan. US commanders on the ground say it may not even be logistically possible. Does Obama even care? He says that when he's elected he'd give the military a new mission - to end the war. Conditions in Iraq, let alone winning, are marginalia.

There are two possible interpretations: Either Obama is dangerously sincere or he's a cynical operator playing duplicitous politics with matters of war and peace. Watch this space.

Read The Op-Ed.