John McCain tried yesterday to argue that Barack Obama is setting up a false choice between Iraq and Afghanistan. Christopher Hitchens does a better job of it today, explaining “any attempt to play off the two wars against each other is little more than a small-minded and zero-sum exercise.” Hitchens argues that the problem of Afghanistan is not one of simply too few troops which might be eased by shifting troops from elsewhere. And then he concludes:

Another consideration obtrudes itself. If it is true, as yesterday’s three-decker front-page headline in the New York Times had it, that “U.S. Considering Stepping Up Pace of Iraq Pullout/ Fall in Violence Cited/ More Troops Could Be Freed for Operations in Afghanistan,” then this can only be because al-Qaida in Iraq has been subjected to a battlefield defeat at our hands—a military defeat accompanied by a political humiliation in which its fanatics have been angrily repudiated by the very people they falsely claimed to be fighting for. If we had left Iraq according to the timetable of the anti-war movement, the situation would be the precise reverse: The Iraqi people would now be excruciatingly tyrannized by the gloating sadists of al-Qaida, who could further boast of having inflicted a battlefield defeat on the United States. I dare say the word of that would have spread to Afghanistan fast enough and, indeed, to other places where the enemy operates. Bear this in mind next time you hear any easy talk about “the hunt for the real enemy” or any loose babble that suggests that we can only confront our foes in one place at a time.

That, I think, is what Obama would do well to address if he is really trying to set a reasoned national security policy (and not just calm his netroot base while maintaining the veneer of credibility on national security). Does he think we can afford to let Iraq slip back into chaos? And what is he prepared to do to prevent that from happening, if he acknowledges that there are dire consequences which would arise from our departing Iraq prematurely? He hasn’t gone near that yet, and pundits are starting to wonder. That was what had the Washington Post editors fretting today.

Perhaps Obama’s attention will be focused when he goes to Iraq later this month, although I may be too optimistic. An Iraqi official may be closer to the truth: “The issue of Iraq is important and a key issue in the U.S. elections. . . . But I think his visit just represents election propaganda.” Let’s hope not. Let’s hope he thinks more seriously about the impact of the outcome in Iraq not just on Afghanistan but on our interests throughout the Middle East and the world at large.

But it is an election after all. So today the opposing camps picked up where we left off. The Obama team had its call contending McCain has no plan for Afghanistan or has flip-flopped. (The latter charge I really don’t understand since McCain has been rather dogged on Iraq and Afghanistan, and will test how credible an offense you must have to serve as a good defense.). More credibly, they raise the issue of the need for a large military and the desire to balance the budget. McCain’s tea, in response, sent around some press reviews:

I think it has hurt him… The surge was a success. It’s widely accepted as a success, has moved politics along in Iraq. But what they did was they took his criticism of the surge off the web page. What it feeds into is that notion that Barack Obama’s just another sort of politician and they know they have to be careful about that because he’s running as something very different.

–Candy Crowley, CNN, 8:02 AM, 07/16/08

… [F]rankly, I think it was a big mistake to give the speech before he went… Not only does it open him to ridicule from McCain saying ‘you know, you haven’t even been to Afghanistan, you haven’t met with General Petraeus, you missed hearings on Afghanistan,’ but it boxes him in policy-wise. Because here he is saying, I want to withdraw from Iraq responsibly…and we know from what commanders are saying on the ground already…saying it is very dangerous, quote, unquote, to impose a timetable…he gave this major policy speech today and when he comes back, it doesn’t leave him a lot of wiggle room to adjust to his policies.

Nina Easton, FOX News, 6:41 PM, 07/15/08

A funny thing happened over on the Barack Obama campaign website in the last few days. The parts that stressed his opposition to the 2007 troop surge and his statement that more troops would make no difference in a civil war have somehow disappeared… some might see the updating as part of Obama’s skip to the political center now that he’s secured the Democratic nomination.

–Andrew Malcolm, Los Angeles Times, 07/16/08

Obama has struggled in recent weeks to explain his call for an Iraq withdrawal in the face of military gains. His campaign removed from its Web site his strongest criticisms of the troop increases, now acknowledging ‘an improved security situation’… McCain has leapt to the attack, accusing Obama of refusing to acknowledge facts on the ground.

–Carolyn Lochhead, San Francisco Chronicle, 07/16/08

You get the point.

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