Soccer Dad

I'd rather we didn't win

It's hard following the ins and outs of Prime Minister Maliki's statement and the effect it will have on Sen. Obama's trip to the Middle East and, consequently, the campaign.

Max Boot (who's advising the McCain campaign) sees Malki's statements as largely an internal matter.

John Podhoretz feels that Sen. Obama has hit a home run (or had a home run hit for him.)

But in the annals of candidate luck, there has scarcely been a more fortuitous one than the gift handed to Barack Obama by Nouri al-Maliki in his interview with Der Spiegel. Clearly, Maliki didn't intend to throw an incendiary device into the middle of the American presidential race by seeming to endorse Obama's 16-month withdrawal plan; if he had, he would have spoken more clearly. But whether he meant he would like to have American troops out in 16 months or he needed them out in 16 months or that it would be nice if they were gone in 16 months if that were possible -- none of that matters. Obama can fairly claim to have staked out a position acceptable to the legitimate government of Iraq. And with that, McCain's job of convincing the American people that Obama is a novice who cannot be trusted to hold power just become far more difficult.

The very next item (or physically the one right above it) by Jennifer Rubin takes the exact opposite approach. Sen. Obama whiffed.

That certainly wasn't the point of Barack Obama's trip, but it may be the unintended consequence. Can you imagine a network news anchor now saying that Iraq is hopeless or there is no chance for a robust, independent functioning government? The terms of the debate have shifted dramatically and the Obama trip may be responsible to a large degree for that shift.

I was seeing John Podhoretz's point, until I heard an excerpt of an interview of Sen. Obama by Terry Moran. Jake Tapper excerpts:

If you had to do it over again, Moran asked, knowing what you know now, would you support the surge?

"No," Obama said. "These kinds of hypotheticals are very difficult. Hindsight is 20/20. But I think that what I am absolutely convinced of is at that time we had to change the political debate because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one that I just disagreed with and one that I continue to disagree with is to look narrowly at Iraq and not focus on these broader issues."

I heard the audio, Sen. Obama hemmed and hawed getting that answer out. His response was neither practiced nor scripted. His use of "hypothetical" is a dodge. This is a question that he should have expected and he seemed unprepared for it. This response is something the McCain campaign should use.

Peter Wehner is correct when he writes:

This must surely rank as among the most misinformed, ideological, and reckless statements by a presidential candidate in modern times. The McCain campaign should do everything they can to make Obama pay a high price for it. That one word answer, "No," should be advertised in bright neon lights. It should become Exhibit A that Obama not only doesn't have the "judgment to lead;" he has now supplied us with evidence that few people possess judgment as flawed as his.

Jennifer Rubin adds:

How will all this play? It depends if the American people, after learning of the surge's great success and the brilliance of our commander there, find it troubling that the candidate with no national security experience would throw it all away and disregard knowledgeable advice. It is peculiar in the extreme to have a nominee who when presented with potential victory says " I wouldn't have tried to win." One can imagine that a victory he would not himself have pursued himself (and is apparently sorry we did) is one he has little interest in securing. Hence, his light regard for the advice of Petraeus.

And for all of Sen. Obama's talk about the failure to destroy Al Qaeda, Ralph Peters, who has some military experience sees Al Qaeda as defeated (after having unsuccessfully made Iraq its central battleground for its global jihad.

The partisan hacks who insisted that Iraq was a distraction from fighting al Qaeda have missed the situation's irony: Things are getting worse in Afghanistan and Pakistan not because our attention was elsewhere, but because al Qaeda has been driven from the Arab world, with nowhere else to go.

Al Qaeda isn't fighting to revive the Caliphate these days. It's fighting for its life.

And if the United States had followed Sen. Obama's lead that might not be the case. And he hasn't acknowledged that the success of surge is change that he can believe in.