SHOULD OBAMA GO TO IRAQ?

For Obama's going: McCain will lose a talking point. Against Obama’s going: he will be sucked closer to Bush"s and McCain’s view that there has been progress in reducing the violence in Iraq, and withdrawing U. S. troops would forfeit the progress. Closer: he need not just by going adopt the view, but he will be confronting Petraeus’s military judgment without having any military standing of his own. However, he could take with him people with the military standing to disagree with Petraeus: General Zinni comes to mind, as does Senator Webb. They could probe Petraeus’s weak points, which include his attempt to disown knowing about any plan for withdrawal. Not having a plan or ignoring the importance of having a plan is itself a lapse in military thinking. Worse, it undermines the prediction by Petraeus and others that withdrawal will lead to dire consequences. How dire the consequences will be depends on the care and precautions taken in the best plan for withdrawal. Testifying before Congress Petraeus was allowed to evade this point. Obama could combine with Zinni and Webb to pin him down on it. Then, with Obama in the lead, they could adopt Clemenceau’s maxim that war is too serious a matter to leave to the generals and raise the level of discussion. They could ask whether it is still the business of the U. S. to mitigate civil war in Iraq. If it is not, progress or no progress, our troops should not be there; and the progress, maybe a temporary lull, is just a bonus making it easier to bring them away.