The surge is working.
In the month of July only one serviceperson has been reported killed in the line of duty.
While one death is one too many, it is obvious that General Petraeus has turned the abominable situation in Iraq around. The Maliki government has begun to meet some of its American imposed goals. Oil contracts are being negotiated because the country appears stable enough to support international commerce.
Whether you supported the war, support it now, or don’t, it will be up to the next President of the United States to decide how to proceed in Iraq. There are two alternatives: stay in Iraq and win (win?), or leave Iraq, the job of eliminating Saddam Hussein having been accomplished, the insurgents defeated, and the country ready to proceed to a stable process of rebuilding.
Our two presidential candidates and political parties have taken opposing stands. John McCain is for staying in Iraq and “winning;” Barack Obama is for measured retreat, committed to withdrawing our troops from Iraq in 16 months, his commitment to a timeline of organized withdrawal having been the mainstay of his candidacy.
But last week Obama gave a speech in Fargo, N.D. in which he promised to make a “thorough assessment” of his Iraq policy in his coming visit there and “continue to gather information” to “make sure that our troops are safe, and that Iraq is stable,” before he commits to a policy.
Sounds good so far. The candidate is going to travel to the country we are engaged in military action against, access the situation for himself, and determine for himself from his own fact-finding how he would proceed were he to become the President of the United States.
But no sooner did Obama make the statement, he was pounced on by John McCain and accused of flip-flopping his earlier position.
Quickly, Obama’s campaign trotted their candidate out before the press where Obama “clarified” his earlier statement in order to avoid being called a “flip-flopper,” the term that ended John Kerry’s presidential hopes.
“Apparently, I wasn’t clear enough this morning on my position with respect to the war in Iraq,” Obama said. “I intend to end this war. My first day in office I will bring the Joint Chiefs of Staff in, and I will give them a new mission, and that is to end this war – responsibly, deliberately, but decisively.”
Those pundits who get their jollies off writing about campaign tactics had a field day with this. Since Obama became the Dem’s presumptive nominee he has swiftly moved to the center and backtracked on many of his positions that got the Party’s left to support his candidacy. As Obama repositioned himself to the center, the term flip-flopper was beginning to be added to Barack Obama’s name following a comma.
Now with this hint by Obama that he would take a responsible approach to Iraq, the handicappers said Obama was getting backed into a corner by the Republicans: Should he change his position on Iraq, he would be hurt by two groups: the anti-war base of the Democratic Party, and the independent voters who will ultimately decide who wins the presidential contest.
Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne wrote: “Voters accept that a president may alter the details of campaign promises. What they expect is a clear sense of the direction he will take. At the moment, voters know that John McCain is far more likely than Barack Obama to continue the war in Iraq indefinitely. Obama would be foolish to blur that distinction.”
“Blur that distinction?”
The biggest problem with American politics today is that both sides have become so rooted in their positions, have become so inflexible, that the system has broken.
Nature, the world’s great teacher, shows us that trees bend when the wind blows. If they don’t, they break.
Politics has become sport. Nailing candidates with the moniker flip-flopper for each and every nuanced change of position is a dangerous game to play when we’re talking about America’s future.
Yes, some changes in position are for political expedience. But when a candidate says he is going to make a responsible assessment of a situation before he acts on a promise is a most legitimate statement and should be accepted as such.
On the other hand, Obama would have served himself better had he stood by his original statement. By backtracking one wonders if under political fire the candidate is as strongly rooted a man as he needs to be in the face of the winds of war that continue to brew in the Middle East and elsewhere, and particularly at home.
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