Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it. The old adage has seldom proved truer than for the McCain campaign over the past few days. After goading Barack Obama for weeks to visit Iraq, Obama did just that-a trip that has touched off a series of events that is changing the terms of the debate to Obama's advantage. At the same time, McCain has had a bad run of gaffes that have dealt a blow either to perceptions of his foreign policy mastery or perhaps his advancing years. McCain is fighting back with increasingly direct slams at his rival's credibility and even patriotism in an effort to regain traction.
McCain was first undercut by the Prime Minister of Iraq. As Obama was on his way to Afghanistan, his first stop, Iraqi President Nouri al-Mailki conducted an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel in which he spoke in favor of a withdrawal of US troops from his country by the end of 2010. His description sounded like it could have come straight out of an Obama speech.
"Would you hazard a prediction as to when most of the US troops will finally leave Iraq?" Der Spiegel asked. "As soon as possible, as far as we're concerned. US presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."
"Is this an endorsement for the US presidential election in November? Does Obama, who has no military background, ultimately have a better understanding of Iraq than war hero John McCain?" the magazine followed up. Maliki answered, "Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic. Artificially prolonging the tenure of US troops in Iraq would cause problems. Of course this is by no means an election endorsement. Who they choose as their president is the Americans' business. But it is the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that's where the people and the government are in general agreement: the tenure of the coalition troops should be limited."
This was followed by Maliki's Sunni Vice President Tarik al-Hashimi echoing the same sentiments, the Shiite Sadrist spokesman speaking even more vehemently about ending the "foreign occupation," and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown signalling a complete withdrawal of his nation's troops by July, 2009. Even the Bush administration, encountering resistance in its talks with Maliki to extend the US mandate, began speaking of its willingness to accept a "general time horizon." General Petraeus added, "For a long time we used to say, 'when is this sovereign government going to make some sovereign decisions?' "Well they have done that."
Overnight the whole tenor of the debate shifted. The question is no longer whether America will wind down its involvement, but when. This seems to have been lost on McCain, who struck back more forcefully than ever with the need to stay in Iraq until the job is done and we have achieved "victory." The news focus is mainly on Obama now, thanks to the international trip McCain challenged him to make, and McCain is lashing out harshly, saying, "I have shown the courage to say I would rather lose a campaign than lose a war, but Sen. Obama has shown that he would rather lose a war if it helps him win a campaign." That is one short step removed from literally calling Obama a traitor.
Scenes of Obama getting a tumultuous, cheering welcome from a gymnasium full of smiling American troops in Iraq as he drained a couple of three-pointers are also a monkey wrench in the gears of the conventional wisdom that holds it is the Republicans who have the loyalty of Armed Forces members. And McCain seemed to be merely trying to one-up Obama's plan to add two brigades to Afghanistan by following that with his own suggestion to add three. George W. Bush himself has contributed to McCain's discomfiture by sending an American emissary to discussions with Iran after he and McCain had earlier characterized Obama's willingness to do so as naive and appeasement. Obama's trip so far could not have come off better for him or worse for McCain.
The post script to the story is the increasing number of errors, misstatements of fact, and gaffes McCain is making about foreign affairs topics of late. It was opined before Obama's trip that he was the one likely to be damaged by slips of the tongue on international matters and look bad compared to the more experienced McCain. Instead it is McCain who seems to be in a hurry to hand more of his foreign policy lead over to his Democratic opponent.
On Monday McCain spoke of problems on the "Iraq-Pakistan border." The two nations share no border; it is assumed he meant the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. He said we have returned to pre-surge force levels in Iraq when there are actually still 20,000 more there than before the surge, and he also said the Sunni "awakening" of tribes that turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq extremist groups was a result of the surge when in fact it was already underway before the surge had even been proposed. On June 30, talking about the Darfur region of Sudan, he asked, "How can we bring pressure on the government of Somalia?" He has also referred to the former Russian President as "President Putin of Germany," has at least three times mentioned Czechoslovakia, which was broken into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993, and this spring kept confusing the rival branches of Islam, the Sunnis and Shiites. These errors are increasingly making McCain the butt of late-night television show jokes poking fun at his age, a subject that cannot be helping him in the least.
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