Obama’s Security Speech

I’m just getting a chance to listen to it. I’m about halfway through it, and so far it’s really strong, I think. Here is my favorite part (bolded):

At some point, a judgment must be made. Iraq is not going to be a perfect place, and we don’t have unlimited resources to try to make it one. We are not going to kill every al Qaeda sympathizer, eliminate every trace of Iranian influence, or stand up a flawless democracy before we leave – General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker acknowledged this to me when they testified last April. That is why the accusation of surrender is false rhetoric used to justify a failed policy. In fact, true success in Iraq – victory in Iraq – will not take place in a surrender ceremony where an enemy lays down their arms. True success will take place when we leave Iraq to a government that is taking responsibility for its future – a government that prevents sectarian conflict, and ensures that the al Qaeda threat which has been beaten back by our troops does not reemerge. That is an achievable goal if we pursue a comprehensive plan to press the Iraqis stand up.  

To achieve that success, I will give our military a new mission on my first day in office: ending this war. Let me be clear: we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 – one year after Iraqi Security Forces will be prepared to stand up; two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, we’ll keep a residual force to perform specific missions in Iraq: targeting any remnants of al Qaeda; protecting our service members and diplomats; and training and supporting Iraq’s Security Forces, so long as the Iraqis make political progress. 

We will make tactical adjustments as we implement this strategy – that is what any responsible Commander-in-Chief must do. As I have consistently said, I will consult with commanders on the ground and the Iraqi government. We will redeploy from secure areas first and volatile areas later. We will commit $2 billion to a meaningful international effort to support the more than 4 million displaced Iraqis. We will forge a new coalition to support Iraq’s future – one that includes all of Iraq’s neighbors, and also the United Nations, the World Bank, and the European Union – because we all have a stake in stability. And we will make it clear that the United States seeks no permanent bases in Iraq. 

Note the first paragraph, too. See what Obama does there? Something George W. Bush hasn’t been able to do at any time during the past five years: define success in Iraq.

By contrast, Sen. McCain defines delusional:

McCain’s new policy on Afghanistan — I say “new” because up until now, he hasn’t actually articulated a policy on Afghanistan — can be summarized this way: “Just do what we’ve been doing in Iraq.” Seriously. That’s the policy.

This, of course, doesn’t make any sense. The wars are entirely different. The causes of violence are completely different. The competing factions are completely different. Oh, and by the way, Iraq hasn’t gone especially well.

McCain seemed particularly fond of this line from his speech: “I know how to win wars.” Now, with all due respect to the senator’s military service, what is it, exactly, that leads McCain to think he has this knowledge? McCain hasn’t, you know, actually won any wars.

My suspicion is, McCain means he endorsed the surge, the surge led to victory in Iraq, and if he can just bring more surges to more countries, American would keep winning. In other words, when McCain says he knows “how to win wars,” he means he’s concluded, “Surges = Victories.”

It simply never occurred to me that the Republican Party would nominate another presidential candidate as sophomoric and confused as George W. Bush. It just didn’t seem possible.

And yet, here we are.

McCain argued today, “Just as we have worked over the past 18 months to stabilize Iraq by bringing together its neighbors, this kind of diplomacy is just as important for Afghanistan.”

I hope someone can help me out with this one. I like to think I keep up fairly well on current events, but I don’t quite recall the period in which we “brought together” Iraq’s neighbors. For that matter, I’m still looking for this “stabilized” Iraq.

The fall-out-of-the-chair moment, however, came when McCain insisted, Obama “has no strategy…. All he has done is say we need more troops.”

I see. So, what’s McCain’s strategy? We need more troops — and an Afghanistan czar.

There was also this gem:

“[U]nderstand this, when I am commander in chief, there will be nowhere the terrorists can run and nowhere they can hide,” he said.

Unless, of course, the terrorists hide in Pakistan. In that case, McCain even talking about possibly pursuing terrorists is reckless and irresponsible. And it’s not as if there are any terrorists hiding in the mountains of Pakistan, right?

Oh, and speaking of sending more troops to Afghanistan, where would they come from?

Only Obama seems to have an answer to that.

Look at the two candidates’ foreign policy speeches side by side:

If you read the two speeches together, it’s striking how much Obama focusses on understanding our foreign policy goals not just one by one, but in terms of their relation to one another, and to our broader interests: the costs of the war in Iraq to Afghanistan, to our military, and to our broader interests; the importance of having a good Pakistan policy to Afghanistan, terrorism, and nuclear nonproliferation; the relationship of our energy policy and our alliances to each of these things.

If you look at McCain’s speech, by contrast, it does not have much strategic vision at all. (It’s worth noting that his major new proposal is to create separate Czar-ships for Iraq and Afghanistan: to separate, not to combine.) Here, as best I can tell, is what he says about the relationship between Iraq and Afghanistan:

“Senator Obama will tell you we can’t win in Afghanistan without losing in Iraq. In fact, he has it exactly backwards. It is precisely the success of the surge in Iraq that shows us the way to succeed in Afghanistan.”

I take it that by the claim that Obama thinks “we can’t win in Afghanistan without losing in Iraq”, McCain is referring to the idea that we can’t send more troops to Afghanistan until we bring some of them home from Iraq. This is, of course, true, and it’s worth asking whether McCain’s Iraq policy makes enough troops available to allow him to do what he says he wants to do in Afghanistan. He does not consider that question, as far as I can tell. 

Obama and McCain think differently:

When Obama was under fire for Reverend Wright, Obama gave a speech in which he asked his audience to think bigger, to rise above the narrow, gaffe-driven debate about Wright and have a real and meaningful discussion about the larger social and historical forces at play.

Now Obama has again done something very similar on Iraq.

John McCain wants the debate between the two men about Iraq to be framed around three narrow assertions: One, he was right about the surge, which has succeeded. Two, that success proves that we can “win” with “honor,” rather than “surrender.” And three, Obama has “flip-flopped” because he can’t guarantee that withdrawal from Iraq won’t take 30 seconds longer than his proposed 16 months.

Today, Obama insisted on a much broader framing of the discussion, in multiple ways. 

Referring to Obama’s call, in his speech, to remember the opportunity our leaders threw away after 9/11, Steve Benen writes:

It’s easy to forget what an important, generational moment this was for the nation. Our traditional allies couldn’t have been more supportive, and were anxious to cooperate, but more importantly, untraditional allies wanted to forge new relationships with the United States, including Syria and Iran, both of which had long-standing concerns about al Qaeda. It was an unprecedented opportunity for America to lead. Instead, we had George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and a team of neocons, who had a dream to execute. We’re living with the consequences today, and will be for quite some time. 

I mention this because of one of the more powerful portions of Barack Obama’s speech on national security today in DC. [...]

“Imagine, for a moment, what we could have done in those days, and months, and years after 9/11. [...]

Keep in mind, this was more than just a missed leadership opportunity, more than just a dangerous miscalculation, and more than just a mistake. It was the execution of a misguided worldview that deliberately rejected this generational opportunity.

And it is a worldview that John McCain — at least in his current persona — embraces enthusiastically.

There are 111 days until the election. Vote wisely.

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