McCain, Obama sharply divided on Iraq goals

McCain emphasizes relationships
By contrast, Mr. McCain argued that the improved security had finally given the Iraqis the confidence to move forward politically and economically, improving their working relationship with the American military and Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador in Baghdad. Threats to cut off American training or deadlines for removing combat brigades, he argued, would only prompt Iraq to become more dependent on Iran or turn to militias for security.

“For a long time, people have said threaten them with this, threaten them with that,” Mr. McCain said. “Instead, Petraeus, Crocker and others established a relationship with the Iraqi government so that they did do de-Baathification, they did do an amnesty, they passed a budget. The United States government hasn’t passed a budget.”

There is no shortage of challenging issues in Iraq, including how fairly the Iraqis carry out a plan to allow more former Baathists to return to government service, the adoption of a law distributing oil revenue, and ensuring that the coming provincial elections are conducted impartially. Mr. Obama also complained that Mr. McCain “has never clearly spelled out” what it would mean to achieve victory in Iraq.

Asked to explain his plan, Mr. McCain did not provide any specific suggestions for how he could persuade Iraqi officials to make headway on these thorny political issues, beyond the sort of behind-the-scenes cajoling that American officials are already undertaking.

“I’ll continue to try to find ways to make them move forward. But to threaten withdrawal, frankly, is an option that I would be very reluctant to exercise unless I was sure that we had no other option, and I think we have lots of them,” Mr. McCain said. “I predict that the Iraqi government in a very halting and stumbling fashion, frustrating to us on many occasions, will move forward and progress.”

The stakes in Iraq
At its most basic, the dispute between Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain centers on the importance of the American mission. For Mr. Obama, the invasion of Iraq was a mistake and the efforts he would make there are essentially a matter of damage limitation. By defining a series of minimal goals, Mr. Obama would seek to reduce American forces.

Toward that end, Mr. Obama said his objective was a sovereign Iraq that was not a threat to the United States or its neighbors, was capable of controlling its own borders, was not a “base camp” for terrorists and was not experiencing “mass violence.” He said that it would be important that “the will of the Iraqi people is being expressed” though “the machinery of democracy may not be perfect.”

“I have to think about the fact that given our current levels of deployment our military is stretched very thin, and if we have a sudden situation, let’s say in North Korea right now, we have got some issues,” Mr. Obama said. “And that is before we start talking about the expenditures involved at a time when the administration just announced they want a $700 billion credit line. So that is the lens through which I view the situation in Iraq.”

For Mr. McCain, the problems the United States has encountered in Iraq stemmed from what he saw as the many blunders made during the early years of the occupation, errors that he asserts have been largely remedied by the surge of reinforcements and a new counterinsurgency strategy.

Although the Qaeda militants who planned the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks did not carry out their plotting in Iraq, Mr. McCain argues that Qaeda militants, operating with Iraqi Sunnis, gained a foothold in the chaos that followed the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

“I agreed with both General Petraeus and Osama bin Laden, who both said that Iraq was the central battleground in this struggle,” Mr. McCain said. “And I also believe that Afghanistan is going to be a longer struggle in some respects. But the most important thing was that if we failed in Iraq, that it would have had adverse consequences throughout the region.”

This article, “Rivals Present Sharp Divide on Iraq Goals”, first appeared in The New York Times.

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