NYT editorial: Obama's "Talking Sense on Iraq"

[DeepModem Mom]

Talking Sense on Iraq
Published: July 17, 2008

It has been obvious from the start of the 2008 campaign that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the biggest foreign policy challenges awaiting the next president. But there has been precious little detailed discussion of them on the campaign trail.

Until this week, when Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, offered a sensible and comprehensive blueprint for dealing with the mess that President Bush created by bungling the war of necessity against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, which could have made Americans safer, and starting a war of choice in Iraq, which made the world more insecure.

Mr. Obama’s Republican rival, Senator John McCain, is no longer able to ignore the situation on the Afghan-Pakistan border, where Al Qaeda and the Taliban — the true threats to American security — are resurgent. But he has not matched Mr. Obama’s seriousness on Iraq. Mr. McCain is still tied in knots, largely adopting Mr. Bush’s blind defense of an unending conflict.

Mr. Obama has a better grasp of the big picture, despite Mr. McCain’s claim to more foreign policy experience. For far too long, Mr. Bush’s preoccupation with his misadventure in Iraq — which fostered a presence for Al Qaeda where there was none — has dangerously diverted precious manpower, resources and high-level attention from Afghanistan and Pakistan. As Mr. Obama correctly asserted in an Op-Ed article in The Times on Monday and in a speech on Tuesday, those countries, not Iraq, are the real frontline of the war against terrorism.

Mr. Obama said he would withdraw combat forces from Iraq by 2010, shift at least 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan that could be leveraged to persuade NATO allies to also increase their numbers, send more nonmilitary aid to Afghanistan and build a stronger Afghanistan-Pakistan-NATO partnership on the lawless border. He also promised an extra $2 billion as part of an international effort to deal with more than four million displaced Iraqis — a crisis that the Bush administration has unconscionably ignored....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/opinion/17thu1.html

[babylonsister]

1. That's gotta hurt. So much for McSame's 'experience'. nt

[bemildred]

2. It appears to me that the MSM has accepted Obama.

There are nice little humanizing pieces about Obama popping up in the media all of a sudden:

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-fg-obamadad17-2008jul17,0,3008980.story

[babylonsister]

3. I saw that earlier but never considered the positives; I'm so used

to reading negative stuff, especially from the LA Times. Thanks for the perspective; it's a good thing, finally!

[bemildred]

4. Paranoia is always a sound starting point.

The duplicitious nature or our political system dictates that; but it's clear that business as usual (politically speaking) is not working.

The best single thing one can do at this point is work to make the maximum number of unemployed pro-war Congresspersons in November.

I think the situation now is that it's being accepted that we are going to have Obama, so now the struggle is going to be about access to Obama and control of Obama and so on. It's going to be interesting to see what Obama does with all that once he gets it, too.

[babylonsister]

5. I've read the rethugs have conceded the senatorial races already

because of finite funds. They're putting all their 'eggs' in one basket, banking on McSame. Sounds good to me!