The consequences of defeat

Bret Stephens:

...

Where the candidates have real differences is over Iraq. Mr. Obama, as everyone knows, wants to remove American troops at a steady rate of one to two combat brigades a month, until they are all but gone, and "help Iraq reach a meaningful accord on national reconcilation." Mr. McCain, as everyone also knows, will do just about everything it takes to win in Iraq and is prepared, on the Korean, West German or Japanese model, to deploy soldiers to the country for a century to preserve the peace.

Yet what distinguishes Mr. McCain's foreign policy from Mr. Obama's is not about the nature of America's commitments in the Middle East. It is about their understanding of the consequences of defeat. Mr. McCain seems to have some. It's not clear whether Mr. Obama does.

In his speech, Mr. Obama rightly observes the paradox of Mr. McCain's position on Iraq. The Arizonan, he notes, argued in 2006 that the U.S. could not withdraw because "violence was up," whereas now he argues the U.S. cannot withdraw "because violence is down." "Success," says the Illinois senator, "comes to be defined as the ability to maintain a flawed policy indefinitely."

A fair point. But here are questions for Mr. Obama: Could there be something worse than the indefinite maintenance of a flawed policy? What if, following a U.S. withdrawal, Iraq collapsed into chaos? What if U.S. embassy personnel have to be helicoptered to safety from the roof of the Baghdad embassy? It's not as if this hasn't happened before.

Nowhere in Mr. Obama's speech is that scenario entertained, and one wonders why. Perhaps it is a function of biography. With the exception of a failed congressional bid in 2000, defeat has not formed a significant part of Mr. Obama's upwardly mobile life experience. Or perhaps it is a function of philosophy. Not everyone share's Mr. McCain's view that the defeat in Vietnam was a "disgrace," or that the result of a war carried out "Not In My Name" nonetheless has bearing on the worth of one's country.

In a recent interview, Randy Scheunemann, who runs the McCain campaign's foreign policy shop, noted that "Vietnam had a huge impact on John." Obviously. Less obvious: "It's not about his personal experiences in the war as a POW," he said. "It's about leading a group of naval aviators [after the Vietnam war] when they had to cannibalize parts."

Mr. Scheunemann is referring to a chapter in Mr. McCain's life when in 1974 he took command of the Navy's largest naval air squadron in Jacksonville, Fla. Nearly 20 of the squadron's 50 jets had been grounded for lack of maintenance, and some hadn't flown in years. Mr. McCain eventually managed to get all his planes flying again, a professional triumph. But the condition of the post-Vietnam Navy turned out to be an abiding lesson to Mr. McCain about what happens to a defeated military.

As for Somalia, Mr. McCain noted in one of his memoirs that "The decision to leave Aidid unpunished and to withdraw from Somalia had a disheartening effect on our military. . . . They wondered if we would ever be as committed to victory as they were in the causes we ordered them to serve. Somewhere in Sudan, Osama bin Laden observed our withdrawal from Somalia and concluded that America no longer had the stomach for war."

In his speech, Mr. Obama noted that there was no point trying to best Mr. McCain in matters of experience, that what counted was good judgment. Very true. How one can have the latter without the former is a question for the rest of us to consider.

I am not sure of McCain's depth of knowledge of counterinsurgency warfare, but his instincts appear to be sound. What I am sure of is that Obama is clueless when it comes to counterinsurgency warfare. You can tell it in his criticism of McCain's policies and his ludicrous statements about the Anbar Awakening.

Our policy in Iraq is not a flawed policy. It is in our interest to have a viable Iraqi government that is an ally in the war against al Qaeda. We have that now and Iraq has an opportunity to become an even better ally in the future if we do not abandon it. We have handed al Qaeda a significant strategic defeat in Iraq with the Sunni rejection of their evil ideology. What Obama proposes to do is abandon those allies in a cowardly retreat that al Qaeda will trumpet as a victory.

We should not let Obama and the Democrats get away with this false rhetoric about events in Iraq. They are the ones that voted over 60 times to retreat in 2007 while our troops were executing a counterinsurgency strategy that has put al Qaeda on the run. That is what I call a flawed policy.