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Maliki’s Comments: Exceeding the Spin Limit

July 20th, 2008
By JAZZ SHAW, Assistant Editor

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MalikiTrio.JPG
Following the remarkable comments regarding America’s future in Iraq by Prime Minister Maliki, I found myself (along with many others) wondering how long it would be before somebody reminded Maliki that he had wandered a bit too far off leash (which didn’t take long) and how the McCain team would try to spin this body blow to their campaign. (Again, we weren’t kept waiting.) No matter how we slice, dice, spin or puree this, I have to agree with a few other observers that it isn’t just a big deal, it’s a very big deal. And the response from McCain thus far looks not just like closing the barn door following the horse’s escape, but after it has settled in at your competitor’s ranch, comfortably munching at the feed bag. It is also a situation which leaves us scrambling to check the scoreboard on the handling of the Iraq war in its three critical phases: The Past, The Mid-Game, and The Future.

The Past: The consistent position of McCain’s team seems to be that they still feel the initial invasion was the right thing to do, but even if mistakes were made and you disagree, that’s all in the past and we should focus on what to do going forward. Obama continues to point out that he opposed the war from the beginning and that factors into his proposal to get out. The winner? Well, if you’re PM Maliki, you agree with McCain that the war was “right and just.” (Perhaps not a remarkable position coming from a man who was hoisted to the seat of power after the war left Saddam, errrr… dangling.) But for American voters, a solid majority of whom still fill up poll results saying the war was a mistake, the winner seems to be Obama.

The Mid-Game: The Obama camp opposed the Surge initially (not that you can find it on his web site anymore) and wanted to leave long before now, while McCain maintains that he opposed the initial strategy, supported the Surge, and is responsible for the success we’ve seen recently. The winner? Maliki is full of praise for the Surge. Americans, albeit somewhat reluctantly, seem to have faced up to the sad, resigned admission of the media that the Surge produced significant military results and a decrease in casualties, and now seems to think (by a slight margin) that we might still make it out of Iraq with something better than abject failure. No matter which side of the ocean you’re on, McCain seems to win this round.

The Future: This is the one that seems to have suddenly shifted in dramatic fashion. The McCain team has based its entire criticism of Obama on “getting it wrong” on Iraq, while McCain “got it right.” They have repeatedly stated that the long term goal was a status of forces agreement where we would be military partners with a stable, democratic Iraq, creating a situation similar to that in Germany or Japan. They have continually beat that drum that a timeline for removing our forces would be “surrender” in that country. Maliki has now definitively stated that both of those positions are wrong and not in line with Iraq’s desires. They want us to leave as soon as is practical, and long term agreements should be diplomatic in nature, not military. They want their country back without any decades long strings attached.

The winner? I’m sorry, but there isn’t enough spin in all of NASA’s gyroscopes combined to make this look like a win for McCain. And with Sunday morning news shows now depicting Obama being greeting by soldiers giving him a standing ovation in Afghanistan, lunching with the troops and playing basketball with the marines, I wouldn’t want to be the one delivering coffee to the McCain war room today.



This entry was posted on Sunday, July 20th, 2008 at 5:29 am and is filed under Newsweek Blogitics, Iraq War, Afghanistan War, Withdrawal, John McCain, 2008 Elections, War, Barack Obama, Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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    Good analysis. Like I said yesterday, the irony here is that McCain is now trying to talk about past decisions rather than future strategy. But just as Republicans once argued that debated the original cause of war was water under the bridge, the Democrats could say the same thing now. After all, there would be no need for a surge if we hadn't invaded in the first place.

    Another point that McCain misleads on is what the surge actually did. The drawdown in violence was a result of the Anbar Awakening and Al Sadr's ceasefire. Notably, when the Sadr's ceasefire briefly broke down in April, violence spiked. There's no telling what would happen if Sadr's men reappear from the shadows again. What the surge did was provide US troops to build walls surrounding Baghdad neighborhoods. This merely ratified the ethnically cleansed neighborhoods into separate enclaves. The big strategic shift was not the increase in troops (only 30,000 anyway) but the hiring of Petraeus, who actually understands counterinsurgency.

    While many people in Washington - including Obama - opposed the surge, I don't recall anybody opposing the hiring of Petreaus.
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    Also in the news, SPIEGEL sticks to its version of the conversation.

    But I agree with Jazz's analysis. With regard to "The Mid-Game", Obama has been very inconsistent. He opposed the surge at its inception, and for a long time thereafter he stuck to the opinion that it would not have an effect, even on the level of violence. Then, earlier this year he started saying that of course 30,000 additional troops would help to reduce the level of violence, but what is really needed is political solutions. Yes, political solutions are important. But there is no way to spin his statements on the tactical effects of the surge in any terms other than a reversal. Worse, Obama's most recent statements are more consistent with elrod's take on things -- that other factors were more important than the surge in quelling violence. That, to me, was another fumble on his part, and a rather serious one.

    My opinion is that it was all of the above. The surge was not the only component in quelling the violence, but it was an important one. The appointment of Petraeus was key. And his embedding strategy appears to have helped both to win hearts and minds and to bring the Iraqi army up to speed more rapidly. Those things, combined coopting provincial forces and the extra American troops, allowed "friendly forces" to stay in areas that were cleared to secure and consolidate them from the ground up. No more of the top-down whack-a-mole strategy that dominated Rumsfeld's tenure.

    All the while though, Obama has been consistent on the one thing that most people pay most attention to: his goal that American combat troops should be withdrawn in 16-18 months. He's been saying that for 16-18 months. I'm sure he'll be sticking to it through November and (if elected) on to January. And if things keep going in the same direction, by that time it appears reality will have caught up with the meme.

    I think one could effectively argue that there was a substantial amount of luck in Obama's favor in the way things are shaking out. But I also I think one could effectively argue that Obama knew his would be an easy position to maintain, because it wasn't dependent upon the success or failure of the surge. McCain's position was much more risky -- the surge had to succeed, at least tactically to a reasonable extent. Had it failed to have an effect on security conditions, his candidacy would have been dead. In Obama's case, if the surge failed people would be crying for a dramatic and immediate change in strategy. If it succeeded, people would be anxious to leave ASAP. Obama's bases were covered either way. He didn't need luck. If there was any luck involved it would be Maliki's recent comments, coupled with his gov't resisting Bush's attempts to pressure them into a long-term status of forces agreement. That definitely worked in Obama's favor -- and definitely not in McCain's.
 
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