Worldview Item of the Day
General Petraeus, the man I believe history will remember as the heroic leader of Operation Iraqi Freedom, recommends that the mission in Iraq will need 8,000 less troops for the mid-January troop rotation than it did for the last rotation. When coupled with the recent news of the military turnover of al Anbar province to the Iraqis, very few honest observers can deny that the Surge succeeded. Even Barack Obama, once an ardent opponent of the Surge and a proponent of its failure, now agrees that it succeeded.
If the Surge has succeeded, and that success is allowing American service people to stay home, then what exactly is Obama campaigning to change?
Suddenly, it looks like John McCain, who has been calling for more troops in Iraq since at least 2004, is a really smart guy. If he is smart on Iraq, what else might he be smart about?
Certainly, the next thing that comes to mind is his selection of Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential candidate. Not only does McCain seem to know about something like Iraq, but he also seems to know something about appealing to people with a substantive political choice.
What this looks like to me is the beginning of a perfect political storm. Of course, there are weeks until the election, but more and more evidence shines its light on Obama’s untenable positions on foreign policy and understanding the American political dynamic even as John McCain proves that he has been right all along.
If that trend continues, I do not see how Obama can win. The American voter may be fickle and often uninformed, but with the right set of circumstances, those same voters are not dumb. If Obama comes across looking like a cynic against McCain’s pragmatic optimism, then Obama is finished.
