Clash on Iraq Could Be McCain-Obama Preview

TYLER, Tex., Feb. 27 -- Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) accused Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) of making ill-informed comments about Iraq and al-Qaeda in Tuesday night's Democratic presidential debate, signaling that a general-election brawl between the colleagues would center in part on who has the foreign policy experience to lead a country at war.
Despite McCain's war-hero status and years of foreign policy experience, Obama made it clear that he will not back down from such a fight, issuing a quick rebuke of McCain that linked him to President Bush and the war in Iraq.
The spat began when McCain seized on a comment by Obama that he would reserve the right to return to Iraq after withdrawing troops "if al-Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq."
"I have some news," McCain told voters at a rally here Wednesday morning. "Al-Qaeda is in Iraq. Al-Qaeda is called 'al-Qaeda in Iraq.' My friends, if we left, they wouldn't be establishing a base. . . . they would be taking a country. I will not allow that to happen, my friends. I will not surrender."
McCain has pledged to keep U.S. forces in Iraq as long as it takes to create stability, form a unified government and defeat terrorist groups. He favors adding more troops, if necessary, to achieve those goals.
Obama, who opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, has said that there is no military solution to the conflict and that he would start bringing troops home after becoming president to force Iraqi factions to resolve their differences. Obama said he would withdraw about one to two combat brigades a month, with the goal of having all of them out within 16 months.
For McCain, the decision to pick a fight with Obama helps keep the presumptive GOP nominee from being overshadowed by the battle between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) for the Democratic presidential nomination. It also gives him a chance to undermine confidence in Obama's foreign policy experience before the Democrat can turn full attention to the general election.
But even as he focuses on a potentially decisive showdown with Clinton in four contests next Tuesday, Obama has made it clear he won't ignore the attacks from McCain. Generating headlines about an Obama-McCain showdown could also benefit Obama by creating the sense among Democratic primary voters that he is on the verge of becoming their party's nominee and also that he can hold his own against the Republicans.
Speaking to 7,000 voters at Ohio State University on Wednesday, Obama answered McCain's mocking tone with his own.
"McCain thought that he could make a clever point by saying, 'Well let me give you some news, Barack, al-Qaeda is in Iraq.' Like I wasn't reading the papers, like I didn't know what was going on. I said, 'Well, first of all, I do know that al-Qaeda is in Iraq; that's why I've said we should continue to strike al-Qaeda targets.
"I have some news for John McCain, and that is that there was no such thing as al-Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq." The crowd roared its approval. "I've got some news for John McCain. He took us into a war along with George Bush that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged. They took their eye off the people who were responsible for 9/11, and that would be al-Qaeda in Afghanistan that is stronger now than at any time since 2001.
"So John McCain may like to say he wants to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, but so far all he's done is follow George Bush into a misguided war in Iraq that's cost us thousands of lives and billions of dollars."
"As commander in chief, I will always reserve the right to make sure that we are looking out for American interests," Obama said in the debate. "And if al-Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad."
McCain seized on those words, saying they showed a lack of understanding of the terrorist group's activities in the country.
The Sunni extremist group al-Qaeda in Iraq was formed in response to the U.S. presence in Iraq. The U.S. military thinks that the group's activities -- such as large-scale car bombings of Shiite gathering places -- peaked in 2006 and that American forces destroyed much of the organization in a series of raids last year.
The group is "frustrated" but "not defeated," Maj. Gen. Jeffrey W. Hammond, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, said in an interview last month. U.S. officials say that coalition forces have pushed the group largely out of Baghdad and Anbar province, but that it remains active in the upper Tigris River valley.
McCain's attack on Obama's answer is the latest attempt by the Republican to cast Obama as inexperienced on foreign policy. Several months ago, McCain criticized Obama for suggesting that he would bomb al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan without that country's approval.
"The best idea is to not broadcast what you are going to do. That's naive," McCain said earlier this month. "You make plans and you work with the other country that is your ally and friend, which Pakistan is. You don't broadcast and say you are going to bomb the country without their permission or without consulting them. This is the fundamentals of the conduct of national security policy."


Em destaque: Artigo ressalta as diferenças entre Obama e McCain sobre a condução da política externa americana e o Iraque.
Fonte: Washington Post
Autor: Michael D. Shear and Shailagh Murray
Publicação: 28 de fevereiro 2008
Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022703826_2.html?wpisrc=newsletter&sid=ST2008022703886

War and peace, the Army way

Rosa Brooks

February 28, 2008

Another 100 years of U.S. troops in Iraq?

"Fine with me," GOP presidential contender John McCain said in January. McCain, who's famously irascible, was presumably exaggerating. His point, he clarified, wasn't that he actually foresaw another 100 years of war, but that U.S. troops may retain an important role in Iraq that goes on for many years after direct combat operations end.

Don't like that idea? Get used to it. Because in many ways, McCain's comments are squarely in line with the latest Army doctrine.

This week, the Army released a new version of FM 3-0, the Army Field Manual on Operations. The first revision since 9/11, it offers what the Army -- which is not an institution prone to exaggeration -- calls "a revolutionary departure from past doctrine." For more than 200 years, the Army has had two "core missions": offense and defense. FM 3-0 adds a third: "stability operations," better (if more controversially) known to the public as nation building.

Remember the 1990s, when disgruntled Army officers waged a muttering campaign against the Clinton administration's decision to send them to Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo, on the grounds that real soldiers ought to spend their time fighting, not acting as peacekeepers/cops/prison guards/civil administrators? Things are different now.

The 9/11 attacks, Afghanistan and Iraq changed a lot of minds about the value of what the military once marginalized as "OOTW" -- "Operations Other Than War." The rise of Al Qaeda helped demonstrate that the many varieties of human misery -- poverty, chaos, repression, civil conflict -- also happen to be perfect breeding grounds for extremism and terrorism. And our experience in Afghanistan and Iraq made it painfully clear that winning the peace matters as much as winning the war.

The U.S. military has always been exceptionally good at war fighting. In Iraq, for instance, defeating the military forces of Saddam Hussein took less than a month. But we all know what happened after that.

By adding stability operations as a new core mission, the revised Army Field Manual tries to ensure that the failures of Iraq will never be repeated. FM 3-0 foresees future Army forces fighting when fighting is called for -- but troops also will work as needed to ensure civilian security and provide "emergency infrastructure reconstruction, humanitarian relief [and] political, legal, social and economic institutions that support the transition to legitimate local governance."

Stability operations will be integrated into Army planning and training at every level and will take place across the "full spectrum of conflict": that is, such activities may be preventive (intended to keep an unstable society from collapsing), or coexist with traditional war fighting, or occur in the aftermath of a conflict.

Imagine! If the White House and the Defense Department had seen Iraq in those terms from the beginning and committed resources accordingly, thousands upon thousands of Iraqi civilian lives might have been saved, the insurgency might never have gotten off the ground, Al Qaeda in Iraq might never have gained a footing and the U.S. might have a lot more friends in the world today.

So FM 3-0 is welcome, and overdue.

But here's the rub. Successful stability operations take a lot of time.

Maybe not McCain's 100 years, but if the U.S. is serious about seeing stability operations as part of the Army's core mission, we'll need a larger Army, and we'll be looking at extended deployments in trouble spots around the globe. You can defeat an enemy army in a month, but truly "stabilizing" a society is something that will happen -- if it happens -- over 10 or 20 years, not 10 or 20 weeks.

FM 3-0 also raises as many new questions as it answers.

The Army can't possibly "stabilize" every troubled society, so how will the U.S. select priorities? Will military involvement in traditionally humanitarian activities create new dangers for private relief and humanitarian organizations? Will others around the world see U.S. stability operations as just a new form of imperialism?

And: Should FM 3-0 be seen as a continuation of a disturbing post-9/11 trend toward the militarization of U.S. foreign policy? Or should it be seen as a sort of "civilianization" of the military, insofar as it acknowledges that real security for the United States can't be achieved through force alone?

And: What role will civilians play? The State Department supposedly "coordinates" U.S. stability operations, including those undertaken by the military -- but that's like saying a mouse will coordinate a pack of 800-pound gorillas. Will Congress commit the funds to build up civilian capacity to match our undoubted military capacity?

In the end, of course, the Army can't answer these questions. Congress and the next president need to. And let's hope they take the task seriously, because 100 years without answers would be an awfully long time.

rbrooks@latimescolumnists.com

***
Em destaque: A colunista do Los Angeles Times, Rosa Brooks, comenta a inserção de mais uma base de atuação do exército americano no seu manual de operações de campo em sua primeira revisão desde 11 de setembro de 2001 (FM 3-0): 'operações de estabilidade', ou seja, atuação do exército na reconstrução de uma nação.
Antes as bases eram apenas duas: a de defesa e ataque.

Fonte: Los Angeles Times
Autora: Rosa Brooks
Publicação: 28 de fevereiro 2008
Link: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oe-brooks28feb28,0,1983673.column

Obama, McCain trade jabs on Iraq, terror

They offer a preview of a possible matchup in the general election, while Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton focuses on trade and foreclosures.

By Mark Z. Barabak and Maeve Reston, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
February 28, 2008

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS -- Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama sparred long distance Wednesday over Iraq and terrorism, previewing a likely foreign policy debate should the two men face each other in the fall.

The exchange was sparked by a response Obama gave in Tuesday night's debate with New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Both Democrats favor a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, which McCain opposes.

Asked if he would reserve the right as president to send U.S. troops back into Iraq to quell an insurrection or civil war, Obama replied: "As commander in chief, I will always reserve the right to make sure that we are looking out for American interests. And if Al Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad."

Reacting Wednesday morning in Tyler, Texas, McCain taunted: "I have some news: Al Qaeda is in Iraq. . . . It's called 'Al Qaeda in Iraq.' " Some in the town-hall audience laughed.

"If we left . . . they wouldn't be establishing a base," the Arizona Republican said. "They'd be taking a country, and I'm not going to allow that to happen, my friends."

Obama responded at a rally in the sports arena at Ohio State University in Columbus. "I have some news for John McCain," the Illinois Democrat said, leaning into the crowd for emphasis. "There was no such thing as 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq."

Noting that McCain tells audiences that he would follow Osama bin Laden to the "gates of hell" to catch him, Obama brought the crowd of more than 7,000 to its feet by gibing, "All he has done is to follow George Bush into a misguided war in Iraq."

Later, at a rally Wednesday night in Texas, Obama added, "That's the news, John McCain. And I'm happy to have that debate with you in November. In October. In September."

The back-and-forth framed the case that the two men, still fighting to clinch their party nominations, would be likely to make against each other in a general election campaign.

McCain suggests that Obama, 46, is too callow to serve as commander in chief. "If we do what Sen. Obama wants to do -- and that's an immediate withdrawal -- that would mean surrender in Iraq," McCain said at a noontime town hall in San Antonio. "I guess that means that he would surrender and then go back."

Obama asserts that McCain, 71, is too wed to the policies of President Bush and old-line Washington. "He's tied to the politics of the past," Obama told the crowd in Columbus. "We are about policies of the future."

The Democrat later left Ohio to campaign in Duncanville and San Marcos, Texas; the two states hold primaries Tuesday that pose a potential make-or-break challenge for Clinton. In the race superdelegates, Obama gained and Clinton lost one Wednesday when Democratic Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a leader of the civil rights movement, changed sides and endorsed the senator from Illinois.

"I understand he's been under tremendous pressure," Clinton told KTRK-TV in Houston in a satellite interview. "He's been my friend. He will always be my friend."

The New York Democrat campaigned Wednesday in Ohio, where she focused on the state's ailing economy and accused Obama and McCain of failing to address the surge in home foreclosures.

"Sen. Obama does not have a plan," Clinton told reporters on a flight from Cleveland to Columbus. "Sen. McCain doesn't have a plan."

She said she was pleased by Tuesday night's Democratic debate in Cleveland, saying she had succeeded in drawing contrasts with Obama and in demonstrating her credentials to be president.

Clinton ignored suggestions that she had failed to change the essential dynamic of the Democratic race, which has tipped Obama's way since early February, when he began his string of 11 straight victories. "What's important is that we have a lot of people yet to vote," Clinton said.

In Zanesville, Clinton again pledged to fix the problems she sees with the North American Free Trade Agreement. The pact with Mexico and Canada was signed into law by her husband, former President Clinton.

"We're going to have trade that lifts up our families -- pro-worker, pro-environment, pro-American trade," Clinton told several hundred supporters. She also touted her plan to put a moratorium on home foreclosures. "Too many Ohioans are losing their homes," she said. "The numbers are staggering."

mark.barabak@latimes.com

maeve.reston@latimes.com

Barabak reported from Ohio and Texas, and Reston reported from Texas. Times staff writers Michael Finnegan in Ohio and Johanna Neumann in Washington also contributed to this report.

****

Em destaque: Os candidatos Barack Obama e John McCain, os favoritos para serem os finalistas das eleições americanas de 2008 trocam 'farpas' sobre suas posições em relação ao Iraque.

Publicação: 28 de fevereiro 2008
Fonte: Los Angeles Times
Link: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/mideastemail/la-na-campaign28feb28,0,5906566.story