Michael O'Hanlon is "livid" over the idea that the next president might actually want to declare victory and pull out of Iraq, some day. That's why he's a highly paid think tank expert and I'm just a schmuck with a blog.
Michael E. O'Hanlon, a Democratic defense analyst at the Brookings Institution who has been an outspoken supporter of the war in Iraq, said he could not believe that Obama would put such a definitive timeline into print before a trip to Iraq, where he is to consult with Iraqi leaders and U.S. commanders.
"To say you're going to get out on a certain schedule -- regardless of what the Iraqis do, regardless of what our enemies do, regardless of what is happening on the ground -- is the height of absurdity," said O'Hanlon, who described himself as "livid." "I'm not going to go to the next level of invective and say he shouldn't be president. I'll leave that to someone else."
Susan E. Rice, a senior Obama foreign policy adviser, snapped back, calling McCain's position "fundamentally disconnected from reality."
Gee, Mikey, then it's a good thing that Obama isn't saying any of the things that you attribute to him. Because it's not absurd to consider an end-state objective by considering how mature the Iraqi security forces are (so many claims of success these days) and decreased levels of violence. Maybe we could set dates by which one can plan the expenditure of resources to include pulling out some day, you know, what responsible policy people are supposed to do. And you should know, since you were for "setting a date" before you were against it. But let's review the latest WaPo poll data:
Even so, public views on Iraq stand in stark contrast to those about the conflict in Afghanistan. A narrow majority -- 51 percent -- said that the war there has been worth fighting. And 51 percent also said the United States must win in Afghanistan to succeed in the broader terrorism battle, a sharp contrast to the 34 percent who said the same thing about the war in Iraq. Nevertheless, some of the shine has come off U.S. efforts in Afghanistan as well.
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Americans are divided on which candidate has a plan for success in the region. Exactly half of those polled said they backed Obama's plan to withdraw most U.S. forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office. But 49 percent sided with McCain's position of opposing a specific timetable and letting events dictate when troops should be withdrawn. Among independents, who will be the key voting bloc in November, 53 percent oppose Obama's timeline.
So half the population thinks that we ought not to have timetables, but only a third think that the war in Iraq is worth fighting and that we must win in Iraq. Oh, and evidently we should be trying harder in Afghanistan. So I want to ask the 10-15 percent of the American public, exactly what is in your head that you think Iraqi is not worth fighting for and that it isn't necessary to win, but we ought to continue spending $10 billion a month and watching so many more Americans come home either wounded or dead? I'm not a statistician, I must be missing something. Or maybe this is just another case of Americans who are too busy watching reality television shows to think about what's going on in Washington DC and outside of the country.
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