Refocus On The Differences

by Steve Soto

No one should be too surprised at the findings in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, which reflect that with a better salesman and talk of “victory with honor”, you can convince a larger number of Americans that we should stay longer in Iraq than you could months ago. The latest poll shows nearly an equal number of respondents want us to stay a little longer in Iraq as compared to those who want us to leave regardless of the outcome. Previously, when faced with an unclear objective and continually moving goalposts by a discredited Bush Administration, a majority of Americans wanted us to get out of Iraq. Now, with John McCain talking of staying until we can leave with honor, and the temporary success of Bush’s escalation buying time for Sunnis to turn on Al Qaeda and for al-Maliki’s security forces to gain their footing, more Americans are willing to stick around a little while longer. But at what cost?

Obama has yet to force McCain to explain why we can afford $12 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan and still manage to lose the latter because of Bush’s bad decisions to keep forces in Iraq at the expense of Afghanistan, all with McCain’s full support. Obama takes a major step towards forcing this debate with a big foreign policy speech today, outlining the differences between him and McCain, and he needs to do more of this, returning to the days when he could clearly define himself on the issues where he differed with McCain rather than rounding the edges. Obama needs to highlight how a short-sighted commitment to a long-term occupation in Iraq, at a time when the host country is in the early stages of throwing us out, is costing us Afghanistan because we don’t have the troops to finish a job for which Bush and McCain abdicated responsibility for years ago.

I’m willing to bet that poll respondents are somewhat ignorant of the monthly cost of this war, as well as the recent actions of the Iraqi government to show us the door. Polls show that respondents are growing increasingly concerned about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, but Obama is just now making the connection to voters, starting with his NYT op-ed yesterday. He needs to counterpunch nimrods like Lindsey Graham and the discredited Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution by asking why is it bad policy to talk of redeployment to Afghanistan when the Iraqis now want an end date from us.