The Foreign Policy and Iraq Debate

In the ongoing debate for what I hope will be the general election between Senators Obama and McCain, we really have the opportunity to decide between two very different views of the world and what our nation's direction should be. This is going to be a debate to decide all debates on the two almost extremes of the argument. On one side we have something extremely close to what our foreign policy is currently--a policy of preemptive war as a strategy to persuade those we don't agree with to cooperate. On the other side we have a war-as-almost-a-complete-last-resort strategy that focuses on diplomacy and foreign aide as tools to root out the high-risk areas that breed terrorists safe havens. First and most importantly at the center of this debate is Iraq our immediate plans to fix it.

I completely agree with the point that we should focused on what's in front of us and not behind. I do, however, think Obama deserves much credit for understanding the situation before we ever came here, and that's one of the reasons I trust his judgment to get us out. The fact is something has to change. Even the absolute best estimates says the Surge only achieved 12 of the 18 benchmarks set--that's only 66%. If I get those kinds of grades I lose my job. Truthfully, most of those benchmarks achieved depends on execution and we really don't know if they actually have been met. I know there has been great security success here--I am in Ramadi which was one of the worst places in the country 18 months ago and has completely turned around. But the government and Iraqi Security Forces are not stepping up as fast as they can or should be. And why should they? I know for a fact we have given the Ramadi community in excess of $40 million dollars towards security details and reconstruction projects in just the past eight months. If we leave the money goes bye-bye with us. We need to take the training wheels off.

I strongly believe a President Obama will execute the judgment to get us out safe and not leave behind a complete mess for al Qaeda to thrive. I believe his number one priority is to get all combat brigades out within 16 months, but it would be foolish to assume that any plan made now by any candidate would be exactly what he or she would do the day they take office. In reality, I believe Obama will sit down with the SecDef and commanders on the ground to redefine the mission and begin withdrawing. This is a bright red flag to the Iraqi government to get its act together. Once we start pulling troops out we must constantly monitor the progress for any signs of al Qaeda strongholds or the "bad kind" of Iranian influence in attempt to undermine the Iraqi government. Does that mean we won't get out all 15 brigade combat teams (Obama has said we will still have some troops here) in 16 months like he said? Possibly. But he is going to use the withdraw as leverage to put a fire under the ass of the Iraqi Government. What happens if that plan doesn't work? It's too tough to tell, but trying to make it look like al Qaeda will overrun the country and take the oil fields is a bit far fetched.

I really like the idea that the mission should be readjusted to 1) continue training ISFs, 2) a small and effective Quick Reactionary Force against the remains of AQI (small and weak today), and 3) some logistical support to help sustain the ISF fighting force. We also need to continue programs such as the Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP), Quick Reaction Funds, and USAID--civil affairs guys tell me all the time "we can spend money on bullets & bombs and get some results, or we can use those same funds and rebuild a road or school and get ten times the results"--Money as a Weapon System! The Iraqi people will give anyone a chance that provides them the most basic services, so that should be our focus. I think what's important here is that the American People don't like it when we have troops dieing and our tax dollars could be used in better ways. If we can get the Iraqi government to somehow start paying for a good chunk of the bill for this new redefined mission, and our troops are not the ones patrolling the streets and getting shot at, Americans will support this new strategy long enough to finish the job here. But the bottom line is something needs to change because the status quo is unsustainable.

I was absolutely appalled when McCain failed to ask a single good question in the last hearings with General Petreaus and Ambassador Crocker. He asked "Is al Qaeda still a major threat in Iraq?", and "Are you disappointed in how the ISF reacted in Basra?", and "What did we learn in the Basra operation?". He should be asking questions about how we are going to get out, but he instead asked a bunch of questions on why we should stay. Obama on the other hand asked, in my opinion, some of the best questions out of the entire panel. The best question was this (paraphrasing): If we could maintain the status quo in Iraq, but we only had, say, 30,000 of our troops there, and the ISF were in control, would that be acceptable? Let me tell you, we couldn't ask for more if we could somehow flip a switch and the ISF was doing what we are doing today. In other words, "what does it look like when we can actually get the hell out of here?"

But the bottom line on Iraq is that we need to make decisions that are in the best interest of our country. I want to hear John McCain answer the following questions: Are we safer today as a result of being in Iraq? How is maintaining the status quo in Iraq going to help US interest in the long run? What are you basing your judgment on? Are you going to raise taxes to pay the $144 billion a year this is costing the American taxpayers? If not, where do you plan on getting the money since you are going to instead cut taxes even further? How do you plan to keep these same levels of troops and equipment while every senior leader in the Army says we are severely hurting? How would you defend our country right now if we were attacked by another military and over half our force is distracted? How do you plan on keeping the same operational tempo when our staged equipment is now being use in combat? How do you plan on training our troops prior to deployment if our equipment in home station in being sent to Iraq? Why do you not support the New GI Bill S.22? (unrelated but it pisses me off). Why should we believe you now since you have been completely wrong this entire time? What's really scary here is most of these very serious questions would seem rhetorical because McCain can't answer them.

And that's just Iraq.

This is about more than just Iraq, however. As much foreign policy experience John McCain has, he seems lost when talking about it. I'm not referring to his stupid little Sunni/Shia remarks either. I listen to him in the Senate Armed Services Committee and he doesn't look like he knows what he's saying--he's not convincing. I think he's just a figurehead for the same guys that got us in this mess in the first place. Wait until we see these two on stage in a debate in the next few months. The American People will see that he doesn't know what's going on. Obama understands the big picture much better. McCain is going to try and sell the surrender thing because American don't like to lose, but that doesn't mean he understands a thing about what's going on here.

McCain wants the American People to believe that our fate is dependent on Iraq, and if he controls the topic of the debate, Iraq is the only country that will be talked about. We hear much of the same drumbeat towards Iran that we heard in the months prior to invading Iraq. The fact is even if there was cause for us to use military force against Iran--a real legitimate reason--our military, especially our equipment, is so depleted  there is virtually no way we could sustain yet another front. Iran knows this and every day we spend draining our force in Iraq, we are weakening our leverage we currently hold with Iran. The more we patrol Baghdad, the less we are able to hunt for the real leaders of al Qaeda in the hills of the Afghan/Pakistan boarder. Our current posture is giving al Qaeda exactly what it wants--a place to fight us and develop its abilities, a reason for new recruits to join the Jihad, and all the while we are expending huge amounts of our resources in blood, treasure, and alliances.

Obama recognizes that this fight against terrorism is the number one threat to our national security, especially keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of the terrorists. But the biggest difference between the two schools of thought is McCain wants to "stay on the offensive" and hunt the terrorists where they live, and Obama wants to identify the high-risk places with conditions that breed terrorists--poverty, lack of opportunity, weak local governance--and get the international community involved in rebuilding those areas.

To make a comparison with a given illness, McCain thinks the best way to handle the problem is to treat the illness everywhere it appears (near-term solution, or "whack-a-mole", with no clear goal), while Obama wants to focus on prevention of the illness to keep it from ever happening (long-run overall solution). Almost everyone agrees that one of the best ways to get our health care costs down is to focus on preventing chronic illnesses in the first place. If we can prevent the conditions that breed terrorists from ever sprouting up then terrorism, over time, virtually goes away. We have completely destroyed Iraq while fighting the insurgency, and now we have to pay to rebuild it along with the already huge cost of maintaining our military in these conditions. Every country in the world has stake in preventing terrorism, but it's much easier to get peaceful assistance like foreign aid and volunteers than it is to get military support.

Like I said, this is going to be a debate of all debates.